The Alliance is not a prelude to Microsoft drastically increasing the number of its applications that run on non-Windows platforms, such as Unix or Linux, Matusow said. Nor is the company amping down its marketing efforts.

Rob Helm, an analyst with Kirkland, Wa.-based Directions on Microsoft, believes Microsoft's intentions are sincere, if only in part because it faces market pressure "to be regarded as a good citizen in the data center."

"Microsoft has picked on some areas like identity management and systems management where it is stuck in a multi-vendor world and could potentially be squeezed out of the data center," he said.