Update: The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, is reporting that the big announcement coming this afternoon is that Microsoft will partner with Novell to support the Suse Linux operating system, a direct competitor to Windows.

The Journal's story (subscription required) goes on to say, "The two companies have also agreed to develop technologies to make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft's Windows on their computers."

Original post:

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to make an announcement of some kind this afternoon at 2 p.m. He'll be in San Francisco. We'll be on the line and will post an update posthaste.

Microsoft will Webcast it here, as well.

So, what's he gonna say? Well, we already know that Vista and Office 2007 are going out to businesses on Nov. 30. Maybe he'll repeat that for those of you who didn't hear it yesterday. Maybe he'll answer that other lingering question: When in January will Microsoft make these two big products available to the rest of us?