Novell Buys Ximian

Quite a number of people have been submitting the news that Ximian has been purchased by Novell. All I've found so far is the press release linked to above; more links as they come in. Looks like Nat & Miguel will be remaining around, and Novell's continuing to expand its Open Source commitments. Update: 08/04 17:30 GMT by S : viewstyle writes "According to an interview with Ximian's CTO Miguel de Icaza at Eweek.com, Ximian won't be affected at all by Novell's buyout, and will be shipping a PowerPC version of Mono (preview release in Sept)."

Comments

Ximian has annoucment

[SirGeek]

They have the announcment on their main page now.

Re:Ximian has annoucment

[Arker]

I understand there is a native client already. Never seen it though. Let me find a link.

Ah yes, here's the press release. A java client, ok not quite native. An alternative to the web interface though.

I'd look for evolution to start working with groupwise too though.

Money

[Xner]

The acquisition of Ximian was an all-cash transaction and is not expected to have a material effect on Novell's financial statements in the current fiscal year. No further details as to the specific terms of the transaction are being disclosed.

Does not sound to me like Miguel will be rolling in cash though ...

Glad I bought their stock...

[bc90021]

I am not hawking NOVL, and I do own less than 100 shares (disclosure complete, post commencing) but I'm glad I re-evaluated them. With their recent release of their products for Linux (which seem to be doing reasonably well), and now with this purchase, it seems that they are serious about Linux. Since they were always great in the directory space, it seems like they just might be positioning themselves to try and contend in directory services again.

Re:I wonder...

[Frodo420024]

Considering that they claim to possess the copyrights that SCO is using to bully IBM, I think this may prove to be a Good Thing.

Novell acknowledge that the copyrights have been transferred to SCO (*sigh*).

Still, this looks like a Good Thing for the Novell product lineup, as well as for Open Source in general.

Reference spotted, reference missed

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell a few years ago used David Bowie's "Changes" in a television advertisement.

Re:What an embarassment

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell aren't the highest profile company but it is apparent they are misunderstood even here on /.

They aren't "about NetWare" or "moving their product lines to be enhanced linux servers". Their position has been solutions for the past 8 years or so. They push the directory model and make peripheral products that use it. They are [almost] as happy for you to use eDirectory on Windows, Solaris, Linux or whatever as NetWare. Using Linux means they don't have to put resources into a kernel and commodity services and can focus on what they do - making a BETTER version of what everyone is doing.

Their GUI isn't really lacking - it's a basic XFree86 - it does the job. I am pretty much never at my console so I don't even load it. And Gnome as an admin desktop is unlikely to be what they want - again, NetWare admins rarely use the console - certinaly not for normal admin which is all currently a mix of the 5 year old Java ConsoleOne and increasingly Web based.

Cisco UI

[Dom2]

Don't underrate the cisco UI. It's one of the best command line experiences out there. No matter what point you're at, press "?" and you'll be told your options. Based on twenex, I believe.

The only thing that's even remotely comparable is zsh.

-Dom

Re:Evolution Exchange Connector

[AVee]

My bet is this is why they bought Ximian. The Ximian guys have the knowlege to write an Exchange replacement.

Can you spell groupwise?
Or Exchange replacement?

Re:how much was Ximian worth?

[univgeek]

They've got approximately $600M in cash, if you say 5% is "not expected to have a material effect", then it could be up to $30M!!

Re:how much was Ximian worth?

[st. augustine]

Ximian probably got somewhere between 3M and 5M USD (given other recent software company sales of similar size).

Unlikely, unless their investors were desperate to get out. According to Ximian's about page, they've received at least US$15M in venture capital funding, probably more. Presumably the investors will be wanting that back.