Novell 'Drinking Their Own Champagne'

TheMMaster writes "According to Novell, they will be using their own flavour of Linux (SUSE) on the desktops of their 6000+ workers. While this was already known for quite some time, what wasn't quite so known was why and how they did it. Novell is moving from Microsoft to Linux and OpenOffice. Here's how it's being done."

Comments

champagne?

[k4rm4_p0l7c3]

no, it's still dog food. call it what it is :D

Success stories?

[Otter]

Those "success stories" in the sidebar are kind of grim to anyone who has been paying attention for a while.

• Burlington Coat Factory (I'm sure I read about that on pre-account Slashdot)
• Largo, FL (big fuss, years ago)
• Munich (now held hostage to posturing over software patents)
• Howard County Library (woohoo, a couple of web kiosks)
• Mexico City (another one that goes back almost to Chips and Dips -- did it even happen in the end?)

How about Extramadura? There are probably more Linux desktops in that operation than in this whole list. And we haven't been hearing about it since 1998.

Re:Success stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

realworldlinux

linuxworldexpo

Re:Success stories?

[JabberWokky]

Largo is happy with Linux and expanding its usage. Burlington Coat Factory is still Linux, I believe. So is... uhh... the tire company. I know because a month or so back, I shoulder surfed their system when I drove a friend to get new tires.

Seems to me that people switch, are happy, and go back to their business. "Business has computers" isn't much of a story, the switch is.

--
Evan

Beer!

[dacarr]

No no no, we should be calling it their own beer. After all, it is free software, and Linus likes his beer. And so should you.

Chicken or the Egg?

[Ridgelift]

OpenOffice.org is just the beginning. A wide variety of desktop applications, including Web browsing and office productivity software, are available at low cost or no cost. Many of these apps not only run on Linux, but also offer versions for Windows, Mac OS X, UNIX and others. What's more, several big-name software providers, from Novell to Oracle, are making their robust and well-tested enterprise applications available on Linux as well.

Good. And they will no doubt run into interoperability problems that other ambitious migration projects have. Of course the big difference is Novell is a position to do something about it. They can commission groups of paid and volunteer programmers to fix what doesn't work, so that we can all benefit.

Maybe there's some ex-Microsoft employees out there that can pitch in. Computing may become fun again after all for the masses.

The MOVE

[cslibby]

I sure wish more companies would be willing to look at this. Novell even has a replacement for Exchange Server. YEAH for Novell!!!!!!

Re:The MOVE

[chbauer]

Yes. Its called Groupwise (http://www.novell.com/products/groupwise/).

Re:NO ex-M$!

[Bastian]

Hasn't the SCO fiasco taught you anything about what can happen if someone even makes up a story that your project benefited from the knowledge of somebody who helped write a competing product?

If it came out that a M$ employee who worked with an Office program's file format were involved in OpenOffice.org, you can be sure that both Sun and OpenOffice would be keel-hauled - if not by the courts, then by the cost of massive litigation.

Yuck

[phrasebook]

Drinking your own champagne doesn't taste all that great y'know.

Novell , now a significant player?

[polyp2000]

I must admit, that despite the many doubters who have posted articles on slashdot regarding Novell. The more I read about their plans and beliefs I am beginning to warm to their current direction. I hope that Novell continue to follow this path in such an amiable way....

nick

Hilarious

[philci52]

Did anyone find this funny:

Linux is well known for offering high-level security for both servers and desktops, with the fewest security issues of any operating system.

I nearly fell off my seat. I swear I get atleast 5 security updates a week. I don't think these people have heard of OpenBSD.