The End of an Era

I've been a Novell CNE since the days of Netware 3.x. You remember, back when you could set up a server, config it, and forget about it? Granted, we didn't ask them to do much back then, but they just ran and ran. I stayed loyal to Novell while expanding my knowledge as the various iterations of Microsoft servers and directories came out, and indeed re-certified up until Netware 6. I was excited by the news of Novell buying Suze, and still think they can turn the corner and be a player that matters again.
However, in the company I work for, Novell is becoming more and more irrelevant to our day-to-day business model. We have a CTO that wants to standardize on a platform, and that platform is going to be Microsoft. I can't fault him too much for that. Application integration is the driving factor behind many decisions today, and not just from the IT perspective. I'm also an MCSE on 2000, and the upgrade to 2k3 shouldn't be too painful.
So as we make plans to re-build our AD (does your AD tree have an Empty Root?), pull out NDS, and shut down all of the venerable Netware servers, I'll do so with a measure of chagrin, wondering what might have been.
Black armbands all around.