Novell Swings Back at Ballmer

Jeff.Ingalls writes "Novell Inc has issued a response to Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer's recent anti-Linux memo, using the same reports cited by Ballmer in defense of the open source operating system."

Comments

Before it gets /.ed

[mirko]

3 Nov 2004, 09:46 GMT -
Ballmer's memo was sent to Microsoft customers and partners last week, and criticized Linux's record on security, total cost of ownership and indemnification, among other things. Ballmer referenced a number of analyst reports that have long been the weapons in its Get The Facts campaign against Linux.

Now Waltham, Massachusetts-based Novell has accused Ballmer of being selective with the truth. "The points made by Mr Ballmer leverage only those statements in its commissioned studies that reflect most positively on Microsoft," Novell said in its response. "A broader look paints a much more objective picture, one more favorable to Linux."

The Linux and identity management software vendor continued to list a number of areas in which Ballmer had been selective in his choice of references from these reports.

For example, referring to a Yankee Group report called 'Linux, Unix and Windows TCO comparison', Ballmer noted: "Yankee's study concluded that, in large enterprises, a significant Linux deployment or total switch from Windows to Linux would be three to four times more expensive - and take three times as long to deploy - as an upgrade from one version of Windows to a newer release".

What he failed to point out, according to Novell, was Yankee's statement: "In summary, the Yankee Group's TCO survey found that Linux does offer compelling cost savings, economies of scale and technical advantages, as many a satisfied user will attest...Ultimately, the TCO and ROI of Linux may be less than, comparable to, or more expensive than Unix or Windows depending on the individual corporate deployment circumstances."

Novell's response also tackles once again a report from Forrester entitled "Is Linux More Secure than Windows" that has already been chewed over several times by the open source and security communities, pointing out that Ballmer failed to note that the report attributed Windows with the highest number of critical flaws compared to Novell's SuSE, Red Hat, Debian, and MandrakeSoft.

With regards to indemnification, Novell notes that while Ballmer stated that "it is rare for open source software to provide customers with any indemnification at all", if he were to check his own slides used in an address to the Massachusetts Software Council in September, he would see that Novell was attributed with offering indemnification.

The response also goes on to tackle Ballmer's statements regarding benchmark tests, training requirements, and migration costs, comparing each with publicly available research reports and surveys.

Finally, Novell dismisses Ballmer's conclusion that "It's pretty clear that the facts show that Windows provides a lower total cost of ownership than Linux; the number of security vulnerabilities is lower on Windows, and Windows' responsiveness on security is better than Linux; and Microsoft provides uncapped IP indemnification of their products, while no such comprehensive offering is available for Linux or open source."

"The facts do not show this at all," Novell retorts, "read the complete reports on Microsoft's site, not just Microsoft's chosen sound bites. Given the increased adoption rates of Linux by customers, many of them also appear to disagree with Mr Ballmer's negative assessment of Linux."

Re:Why, Ballmer, Why?

[lottameez]

Executives are there to sell and spin, not admit that their product is more deficient than the competition. It's like politics...he's selectively using this report to give his entrenched constituency something to spout when the Linux fanatics start slobbering over themselves.

And, yes. I'm relatively new here.

Re:That's some VERY high quality crack...

[QuantumRiff]

Easy, Windows is an Operating system. By saying linux, he is refering to distributions, not the kernel. Of course, he doesn't mention the security venerabilities of Exchange, Outlook, Visual Studio, Sharepoint, and their many other products they sell, becuase they are not part of windows. With linux, it usually all comes in the same box, for the same price, whether you use it or not! He counts the security bugs of all OS Software that usually comes bundled with, An operating system.

Also, the study says its cheaper on TCO to upgrade windows than convert to Linux. Of course, cause people will need a bit of re-training. The windows interface they are already familiar with. Now an intersting study would be the cost of going from MacOS to linux/winodows, or maybe IBM Mainfraimes to linux/windows.

How about a link to Novell's actual response...

[phozz bare]

...instead of a news article about it?

here

phozz

Acutal response...

[crimson30]

Here.

Freedom is a need not a want

[EmbeddedJanitor]

" Developers like freedom."

Developers don't like to be told what to do, but more importantly the freedom allows problems to be fixed more effectively and efficiently than closed source.

As an example (one of zillions), there are two widely used programming tools for the Philips LPC21xx microcontrollers. One is written by Philips (closed) and the other by a guy called Martin (open). In approx January tried to use both and neither worked with the hardware combination I have. The code needed to do a retry if comms failed at start up. With Martin's tool I was able to find the problem, fix it and send the patch to Martin. The patch became mainstream within a few days. I also told Philips of the problem and how to fix it, but AFAIK this has not yet been done in Philips' code.

Without open source, progress is very difficult.

Re:Why, Ballmer, Why?

[An. (Coward)]

Why does Ballmer do this? Why does he make such idiotic, easy-to-refute statements?

Dude, if we learned anything from this election, it's that words are more powerful than facts. Get out of the 11/2, reality-based mentality you're stuck in.

Novell's response to MS's Get The Facts

[Azul]

Related with this, Novell has created Unbending the Truth, a web site discussing Microsoft's skewed Get The Facts Linux-bashing campaign.

Alejo.

Re:Why, Ballmer, Why?

[dhart]

I can't believe that guy is a top executive of a major corporation.

Really? Just wait until you see the monkey boy dance (mirrors).

Re:I like the indemnification part

[erroneus]

If it's not in the EULA, it's an empty promise.

Re:Oh, the irony of it all

[mixonic]

I find it absolutely hilarious that you actually see slashdot.
www.alterslash.org

Re:Why, Ballmer, Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is working with the Chinese government to implement search solutions that pro-actively censor things that the Chinese gov't doesn't want its citizens to see.

That is just as bad as Cisco working with the Chinese gov't to create the great firewall of China. Fuck google and fuck all the naive fanboys who cannot see google for what it really is, just another corporation.

Re:No F or D, just U

[kavau]

Would you prefer them to give you a simple, one-size-fits-all answer to a complicated problem when there is none? Of course, the cited statement is not very valuable by itself, but if they also tell me just what these "individual corporate deployment circumstances" are, I'd be happy with an answer such as this. Or in H.L. Mencken's words: "To every complicated problem there is an answer that's simple, intuitive, and wrong."

Re:Why, Ballmer, Why?

[hocrap]

that's an hoax

The IQ's below cannot be verified, and have become a well publicized Internet hoax.
http://www.sq.4mg.com/IQstates.htm

here is the real data:
http://www.sq.4mg.com/stateIQ-income.htm

IQs, etc

[WebCowboy]

Wow, a web page cites a source so it must be true right?

Ummmmm no I'm afraid not. I need not refute the study based on its merits because the study was made up.

Check out the Wikipedia entry on the source. Scroll to the bottom. The authors never broke down IQ below national levels to get state IQs. The numbers cited in that chart came from a hoax--they were likely made up as a joke to make Gore supporters look smarter than Bush supporters from the previous election. Using the results of standardised tests show much less gap between the "smartest" and "dumbest" states and nearly no correlation with their voting preferences.

Also, contrary to the citation, that publication made use of multiple IQ tests conducted at different times (it did not rely predominately on one IQ test), and did some fudging to obtain its numbers (UK was set at 100 and the rest of the world adjusted accordingly, even though IQ tests generally regard the world average to be 100 instead of 90 as they calculated)

Re:*Cringe*

[IANAAC]

I can't speak to SuperNOS, or even to Wordperfect, but I CAN speak to what they've done for SUSE...

They've continued to refine SUSE for desktop use, which includes players and plugins you won't find in any most any other distribution, for one. YAST being open-sourced/GPLed is another great thing they've done.

On the server side, they've open-sourced Open Exchange. They're certainly doing something with Linux.

Re:Why, Ballmer, Why?

[schon]

Yes, this chart is made up; however if you use real data, you do get something that looks similar, if not so distorted.

Kerry on top, Bush at the bottom, middle is a mish-mash.

Although not as funny as the .png.