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HHS Signs Major Linux Deal With Novell
An anonymous reader writes "The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has signed a major deal with Novell to begin rolling out their enterprise server and desktop products on government systems. The contract provides unlimited use of Novell products to about 70,000 at HHS, including about 30,000 NIH users. Under the arrangement Novell is providing to HHS 'unlimited access, upgrade protection and technical support' for products, including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Novell Open Enterprise Server, Novell Linux Desktop, patch management, and a range of identity-based services for management, integration and security."
Considering that large numbers of customers are disillusioned with RedHat's ability to support their products, many are switching to SuSE.
It's not at all surprising that Novell is scoring large deals like this one. RedHat has been slowing getting one of the worst reputations for support in the industry, even surpassing Microsoft in the "poor support" arena.
Novell, conversely, has a long history of providing excellent support - every company has its problems, and I'm not saying every call is resolved perfectly with Novell, but there is a very high customer satisfaction rating with both the paid and free support options.
According to the article, my contacts at Novell, and Novell themselves - http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?contenti d=879a46d41fe14010VgnVCM1000000100007f____ , they have already signed the multi-million dollar deal. Novell has begun using it as part of their advertising campaign.
So are you saying they spent millions of dollars on a multi-year deal just to secure a better deal with Microsoft?
Wouldn't they have just threatened to go with Novell if they were trying to pressure Microsoft for a better price?
2- Hide it as best as possible from customers
.NET and Mono to boot. Saved me a LOT of work.
YEAH! I just started trolling around Novell's developer websites and they have some really sweet stuff there that I've never heard of! Specifically their open source LDAP implementation in C# is awesome - and compiles in
Go Novell!
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
For example, we are rolling out more than 10,000 new POS systems to a few thousand location. The main software the POS system runs is Java based and is supported under GNU/Linux or MS Windows XP Pro. The third party developers of the Java application recommended to run under a GNU/Linux desktop (they suggested SuSE). However when our PHB's looked at the total costs, it was actually cheaper to use MS Win XP Pro than Red Hat! I think Red Hat has done great things for GNU/Linux, however I believe their pricing is holding back faster Linux server adoption. This is especially true for large corporations (like where I work) that have big licensing deals with MS. We have Solaris, Linux and MS Windows servers running. We could use Linux servers for far more tasks, however the cost of Red Hat is holding our Linux expansion back.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
The Novell client for Linux has been in closed beta for several months. I am sure it will be open beta very shortly. I have seen it and it looks identical to the windows client. And login scripts work too! This client will be the missing piece for Novell to finally get some revenge on Msoft for screwing them so long.
"An NIH source says there are no plans to "unseat" Microsoft products, which are widely used throughout HHS."
Microsoft's got a huge lock on groupware, with Outlook/Exchange locking seats to Microsoft with each other's installation, and locking each to Windows (and vice versa) with each installation of Microsoft's OS.
Novell sells groupware that competes directly with Exchange. They even provide code, sales and frontline support services to Netline's Open-Xchange, the open source project upon which much of their high-end groupware is based. O-X connects transparently to Outlook, and natively to Evolution, Netscape, and other open source clients that run on SuSE Linux, which Novell supports to the same extent. And O-X is middleware that connnects to servers like Postgres, Tomcat, postfix, OpenLDAP (all of which are open source, or have swap-in replacement open source alternatives). O-X interoperates with all these apps via standard protocols and data formats, including Outlook, so all the other software we add to the system that uses those standards continues to work.
Novell's arrangement puts Linux into a giant organization, backed by serious support and development. It's the thin edge of a wedge backed by other apps that can further displace Microsoft's hegemony there. Just like all the Linux/Apache servers that mushroomed everywhere in the last 5 years, including HHS no doubt, without a plan, but which reduced the IIS grip on the market to an also-ran. HHS runs its webserver on Windows/IIS today - after this Novell contract is operational, that will probably change. How long after that will Exchange go the way of IIS? And with IT able to just call Novell for support, and Novell sales calling to sell their O-X line, how long will it take for wily HHS geeks to quietly replace Exchange without the suits even noticing? Then, once Novell and Netline have feedback from a huge paying enterprise customer like HHS, and all their vast array of extranet partners, how long before no one notices that the plug has been pulled on IIS for good, except Microsoft and Novell?
--
make install -not war
As a long time system programmer/administrator there are two things that have always bugged me about Novell. One, the network file system they use is antique. It has no global namespace, no kerberos authorization, doesn't use an ACL model, doesn't support symlinks, etc. Second, while the directory service might be cool, it isn't useful for anything beyond Novell's own products. There are very few client applications that are written for NDS. You can see NDS as an LDAP server, but if you do that then what is the point of using NDS at all? And, an extended third problem is Novell's architecture has always been to close the administrator out, and put him/her behind a set of pre-written GUI tools that prevent any flexability to the system. You can script, but you've got to use Novells own scripting language.
Off soap box.
Translation: Microsoft hired me to blog here.
Parent wrote: "Everyone - and I mean everyone - knows that the Bush administration would instantly fire the head of ANY cabinet dept that failed to purchase Microsoft software."
Translation: Everyone in the federal government now recognises Microsoft software has fundemental security problems that won't be fixed til longhorn, but we at Microsoft can't admit this.
Parent wrote: 'The current thinking within the administration is that open source software is "unamerican" and "socialist".' Translation: Novell's and American company from a conservative state; while Microsoft is a bunch of Gay supporters. Who do you think the administration likes.
Parent wrote:Everyone here at the DHHS knows that this is just a play to secure a better deal from Microsoft.
Translation: As a microsoft rep (perhaps he works at baystar), the parent poster seems to be offering to bribe a DHHS official with this statement? So sorry, slashdot... this has happened so many times, I really didn't think you'd get suckered again.
Note that these guys are under NDA with Microsoft (from my first link: "All will need to sign NDAs cause there are things ... that we don't want to leak out"), so they probably can't even say who they are -- but basically they troll around the various blogs pushing Microsoft fud.
This smells exactly like one of those postings.
I think you are being a little naïve. That web sit is just the root. If you click on the Netblock owner (National Institutes of Health) link you'll see all the websites HHS runs. Not only are there are many MS servers there are also many Linux and Solaris as well. http://toolbar.netcraft.com/netblock?q=NIHNET-2,13 7.187.0.0,137.187.255.255