Saturday, June 9th, 2007 - A rival’s rival is surely one’s friend…but what would a rival’s friend beæ Well, at present Microsoft seems to be in the best position to answer this question, as the software giant has hired a leading engineering manager from one of its strongest opponents, the San Francisco-based Linux Foundation.

Development veteran Tom Hanrahan, former director of engineering for the Open Source Development Labs and current director of engineering for the Linux Foundation, will be now playing the role of the new head of Microsoft’s interoperability lab, one of the offspring of its deal with Novell in November 2006.

Hanrahan has 30 years of experience in engineering management and open source community development. He spent 11 years at Sequent Computer Systems, where he worked in software engineering. He also has worked for Intel, where he led a team of technical writers focused on encouraging the use of software development tools and programming languages with the Intel chip set.

He has had an experience of 30 long years in engineering management and open source community development. He spent 11 years at Sequent Computer Systems, where he worked in the department of software engineering. Hanrahan has also been a part of the Intel group, where he led a team of technical writers focused on encouraging the use of software development tools and programming languages with the Intel chip set. He has initially worked with IBM’s Linux Technology Center in and held the position of senior program manager. After which he joined the Open Source Development Labs in Beaverton at the end of September 2004.

Hanrahan will report to Sam Ramji, head of Platform Technology Strategy and Microsoft’s Open Source Software Lab in Redmond. Hanrahan and Samji report to Bill Hilf, general manager of Microsoft’s Platform Strategy Group. The lab shoulders the entire task of interoperability between Windows environments and customer’s open source code. It certified the operation of the JBoss Application Server and other middleware under Windows before JBoss’ acquisition by Red Hat. Hanrahan will head the Linux interoperability initiatives.

The Linux Foundation is the result of the merger of the Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group. It has cautioned Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft publicly against attempting to impose its patents against Linux users, a response to Microsoft’s warnings on the heels of its Novell deal that it feels Linux violates some of its patents.