They're positioning on-demand as a niche offer. That's smart. If I was SAP, the last thing I'd do is validate on-demand as the biggest trend in the software industry. They'd be crazy to do that.

If they don't make bold moves in the next 12 months, they'll move into irrelevance.

The acquisition has effectively expanded Red Hat's market opportunity in one of the fastest growing sectors of software.

Novell has the necessary resources to be a much more profitable enterprise but it currently lacks the vision, strategy and execution to produce respectable returns.

Red Hat is one of the best-positioned stocks in software and should be able to further capitalize on the growing demand for open source.