Microsoft is targeting Novell Netware customers with a bundle of reasons to dump the software and switch to Microsoft Windows Server products.

Apart from technical help and migration tools users in the US also get $600 services discount for every license bought with 50 client access licenses. They also get online training vouchers and unlimited technical support via newsgroups.

Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of Platform Strategy, said: "Customers have increasingly told us that they are looking for ways to make the move to Microsoft's reliable server platform and road map, but are concerned about migration issues. These offerings are designed to help address customers' concerns..."

Paul Gardner, chairman of the Novell Users Group UK, told The Register: "I don't think this will be a compelling reason for people to change. Now is not the time - if you'd needed to do it you would have already moved, if you haven't there must be a good reason for staying with Netware."

Novell and Microsoft have never been chummy but it looked briefly like legal hostilities were ceasing when MS paid Novell $536m earlier this month. Novell lawyers took four days off to count the money before filing another anti-trust suit relating to WordPerfect.

More details of the offer here on Microsoft's site. ®

Related stories

Novell's MS complaint: we wuz robbed
That's enough peace - Novell sues MS just one more time
Why MS paid Novell half a billion bucks today