Finding the right level

of indemnification"> Microsoft officials also quote from an independent report on indemnification recently published by The Yankee Group, in which senior analyst Laura DiDio said: "To date, IBM, HP, Novell, Red Hat and other Linux vendors offer only limited indemnification against intellectual property legal claims with exceedingly low liability caps—or no protection against third-party legal claims at all—leaving companies with the risk of high-cost litigation." But HP, Novell and Red Hat all have announced plans to protect their enterprise Linux customers. For example, Red Hats Open Source Assurance Plan is designed to protect customers Linux investments and ensure that they are legally able to continue to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux without any interruption. Novell, of Provo, Utah, set up a Linux Indemnification Program for its SuSE Enterprise Linux customers, under certain conditions, to protect against IP challenges to Linux and help reduce the barriers to Linux adoption in the enterprise. HP in September announced that it will indemnify its customers against any legal liability from the use of Linux. Al Gillen, the research director for system software at IDC, also cautioned that IP indemnification is important and companies should ask their providers to be specific about the coverage they offer. "Customers should recognize that this coverage is not automatic, and if provided, will be spelled out by a corporate policy or licensing or use terms of use agreements," he said. This year alone, Microsoft Corp. has paid out more than $3 billion to settle legal disputes around IP with long-time rivals like Sun, multimedia anti-piracy company InterTrust Technologies Corp., Linspire (formerly Lindows) and British cell-phone maker Sendo Holdings plc., among others. Microsofts recent suit with Eolas Technologies Inc. is an another example of the complex and real nature of IP issues in the industry today, Kaefer said. Check out eWEEK.coms for Microsoft and Windows news, views and analysis.