Slashdot Mirror
Oracle Looks At Buying Novell
Several readers wrote to note Larry Ellison's comments about launching an Oracle Linux Distro (great! yet another!) and that Oracle has/is also looking at purchasing Novell. The great shake-out continues.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Oracle Novell SuSE Desktop Linux!
RedHat and SuSE are the usual "enterprise" distros that have tweaks for running Oracle, but Redhat dominates. wonder how threatened RedHat would be if Oracle bought and pushed SuSE. Oracle has had a problem in the past four years of trying to make integrated features that really were best left to third party, like for example oracle filesystem and oracle clustering, which are shakier and more trouble to admin than 3rd party.
Is it just me, or does it seem like a lot of the IT companies don't get Linux and OSS.
Hint to Larry (and IBM, HP, Novell, etc): Work together on a single distribution of Linux if you want to get rid of Microsoft. Commoditize the OS and make your money providing services and software on top of it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Larry Ellison proudly presents -- Orix!
I for one am not jumping on this bandwagon, because Larry is driving and I don't think he has one hand firmly on the wheel as it is. This is a shotgun marriage and isn't liable to make Oracle any more competitive with Microsoft in the forseeable future. He should have probably done this 5 years ago.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
FT link
eweek.com link
Mysql and postgresql are mysteriously missing from SuSE after the acquisition
http://saveie6.com/
Gentoo and Ubuntu ought to be enough for anyone. That's it. No more corporate Linuxes.
What?
What about Debian? (Ubuntu would have trouble without debian to fork every six months)
What about Redhat? (They sponsor alot of stuff that goes into both Gentoo and Ubuntu)
The great thing about linux is that people can go and do their own thing as much as they want - who cares if there's another distro - all the good bits will be ported back to Distro-you-use (tm).
Frankly, I think Oracle Linux would be great (even if I'd never use it). Loads of corporations are vaguely interested in linux to run oracle on to save on the costs of Sun Hardware. An oracle CD they just pop into their drive, where everything just works would make life easier for them and smooth corporate acceptance of other OSS.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Work together on a single distribution of Linux if you want to get rid of Microsoft
I don't think their goal is to get rid of Microsoft, per say. When you buy an automobile, you have the choices ranging from sedans to minivans to heavy duty trucks. Does the Ford F350 really "compete" with a Honda Civic? Does a person purchase a vehicle and decide between the two of those? Not for the most part. For the most part, I've seen IT professionals pick the right tool for the job. When I need to deploy a Microsoft solution, it's usually because it's the best fit for the job. When I need to deploy and Linux solution, it's usually because it's the best fit for the job.
IMHO, there are very few instances where and educated IT professional could actually have to compare a MS or OSS solution in the same way a car buyer would compare a Ford F350 and Honda Civic.
Xandros would be a much more appropriate acquisition:
1) Best in class business desktop
-Best desktop: LinuxWorld best business product
-Focused on the business user (vs the Novell Gnome focused desktop that is more all-purpose / home user market)
-Designed to provide an easy transition for Windows users (vs all of the other distros - more below)
2) Best in class Linux "business" server
-The new Xandros server offers the print serving, file serving, network management needed to run small businesses. I
-Provides unique capabilities (apart from Microsoft) that would instantly differentiate Oracle from all the other "me-too" Linux players
-Designed to provide an easy transition for Windows users (vs all of the other distros - more below)
3) Better strategic fit
-Xandros is a pure play in the Linux area and would not come with the "hair" and unwanted, sub-leading products that Oracle would pick up from Novell (and have to pay for)
-Xandros comes on top of the Debian server architecture. This would be an immediate and powerful win for Oracle to pick up the Debian Server base.
-Top business focused engineering team with long track record of efficient engineering (that delivered the award winning Corel Linux Desktop)
-Xandros was founded as an Simple Compatible replacement for Windows and Microsoft solutions that would provide an easy transition for Microsft users. Compared to the other Linux distros that have been laboring hard to create a new better product albeit alien to the marketplace. This company has not deviated from this strategy (plans for this server were announced years ago).
Hunger is the best sauce.
Hell, let's get Sun into this deal somehow too! Then we could have the trifecta of old school struggling tech companies bound by a hatred of Microsoft.
Rumors of a Novell buyout by Oracle were pre-empted today when Redhat officially announced their aquisition of Novell.
It seems, though that all may not be lost for Oracle. Redhat has indicated that Novell will sell off their Suse division before the Redhat-Novell merger is completed.
"We have been trying to work this deal for a long time," said the head janitor at Redhat's Sao Paulo, Brazil offices. "Why do you think we ejected 'Fedora Directory Services'? We're ready to push eDirectory to its full potential!"
Officials at Oracle did not comment. But a chair was heard smashing against a wall in Redmond, WA.
Naw, not rotten. Novell is a good company. Stable, boring.
It's more of a pinecone. Nobody is sure what to do with it.
But when Novell and IBM have finally kicked The SCO Groups butt, Novell ends up with a clear legal right to Unix. A paranoid person might wonder if Oracle is after Unix for some reason.
so we wouldn't need to have a full time guy to test software upgrades with our current Oracle installations, or to troubleshoot errors
LOL. You've never worked with Oracle software have you? They have a very hard time releasing patches, much less testing them. I've spent dozens of hours on the phone with RH, IBM, Oracle, etc, and Oracle are the _last_ people you ever want to due to their gross incompetence and intentional disregard for anything you might know or claim to know.
maybe "Larinx".
"larry" plus "*nix", got it ? no ? well, whatever.
What ? Me, worry ?
As far as I know, the Ubuntu foundation operates independently of Canonical, Ltd. Canonical could pull all support for Ubuntu in favor of Ubuntu Enterprise Edition (a la Red Hat), but free Ubuntu would live on because Canonical can't take away the Ubuntu Foundation's $10,000,000+ war chest.
You should also note the grandparent's use of the word corporate. Red Hat is indeed a publically traded corporation, while Canonical is a privately held Limited Partnership. There's a big difference between those two when it comes to legal rights, shareholder obligations, and overall evil-ness.
Umm Oracle Financials, the complete design and implementation, full Java front end, a complete dev environment... So they have an application dev environment, and all the applications they put out, now including PeopleSoft.
Oracle supports Novell / Suse, Asianux and RHES as it stands now. As well as doing code contributions back to the kernel. Admittedly this is predominantly to do with their clustered file system, and some of the memory allocation stuff, but still, it's better than some. They also run a number of their servers on Linux as well. They would have to have one of the biggest commercial Linux installations around at the moment.
So; they are doing application development on Linux, Linux kernel work, supporting the operating system through 3 or so distributions and a number of iterations thereof...
Really, why not just buy Novell / Suse and take their staff who can help to support it, and who are doing exactly that now?!?
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
driver crap isn't true? That's funny, my linksys/cisco card won't load on linux without using windows drivers, and it's till a crapshoot at best going about it that way.
If I had a PowerBook G4, I'd load OSX onto it. If I had a Sun 10000E I'd load Solaris onto it, and you can bet your ass everyone else who bought one will too. Last I checked, when you drop 6 figures on a server you want support.
That being said, your point is moot. Knowing I can run linux on a powerbook doesn't chang ethe fact my wireless doesn't work for shit. YOU are all that is wrong with linux right now. Instead of saying "hey, you're right, that's a problem we really need to fix" it's "well f you, that doesn't matter it's not important because of this and this and this". Stop patting yourself on the back, and stop trying to brush a serious problem under the rug. I can only be happy people like yourself aren't running the show or linux would've never made it out of Linus's dorm room.
Only pansys need a distro.. be a man and do it yourself..
Ok, so im only kidding. somewhat.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Man, the standards for Slashdot articles seem to be slipping by the day. Now all it takes to get people talking is speculation about PAST events that didn't even happen?
Back in 1985, rock guitarist Slash (of later Guns 'n Roses fame) almost joined Poison, to take the spot which eventually went to C.C. Deville. There, babble about the relevance of that for awhile.
IF everyone ran Windows the world would be so much better. Imagine one central repository where everything could be collected, supported, and distributed.
Now think about what you just said if someone from another vantage point said it. Just because its your favorite distro doesn't mean its right for everyone. Multiple vantage points is what keeps linux and the rest of the computing world competitive.