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Novell CEO Gives Behind the Scenes Account of Microsoft Deal
raffe writes "Here is a Q&A with Ron Hovsepian CEO of Novell. He describes 'a love-hate thing' between the two companies." From the article:
"This past May, I picked up the phone and called Kevin Turner, the COO at Microsoft. I knew Kevin when he was the CIO at Wal-Mart. I said, "Kevin, I'd like to have a conversation about what the customer needs. If you could put back on your old hat as a customer, if I came in and started talking to you about virtualization on Linux, and this Microsoft guy showed up and started talking to you about virtualization on Windows, what would you say to us?""
here's a $100,000,000 bone
the guy sounds like an MS soundbite now
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
So, Novell's lost 4 deployments to Microsoft ..... and now Microsoft wants to help Novell get a chance at future deployments?
Is this something that makes sense in CEO-land?
Because it sure doesn't make sense from where I'm at.
I'd trust him more if he said one of these statments; since they at least sound plausable.
- "In one contract I closed more Linux revenue at a higher profit margin than we make in most of a year; and as a new CEO it makes me look good regardless of what it does to Novell long term" or
- "Oracle's too strong on the lobbying side in the federal government business for us to compete with; so we needed someone like Microsoft to partner with there because Microsoft has good ties to lobbyists thanks to Gates's dad's company where brahamoff got his lobbying job." or
- "Yes, there really is Microsoft IP there - here are the patent numbers so you can see that we really are protecting you"
But instead he's just spewing Micrsoft FUD that this has something to do with what customers want - while it's pretty obvious looking around that ZERO customers respect what Novell has done here.
The key point from the article is that Novell accuses Microsoft of spreading patent FUD to kill Linux deals.
Software patents are such a fantastic weapon for monopolists who have lots of lawyers. No surprise Microsoft is pushing so hard to get them legalised in Europe.
My blog
" I picked up the phone and called Kevin Turner, the COO at Microsoft. I knew Kevin when he was the CIO at Wal-Mart."
Good ol' boy. Just trying to figure out to make a bunch of money. It has nothing to do with customers or Novell surviving.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
At least that's what I gathered from the several shops I've seen and numerous people I've met. Now I don't touch the Windows side any more so of course it's mostly second hand.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
It seems that 95%+ of the businesses we deal with are running Exchange.
We are linux based web hosting and development company and we are moving to exchange server for our emails. The boss wants customer relationship management software with a high level of integration with office software. What are the techies supposed to do? Refuse to do what we are told and get the sack?
There is only so much dissuation of the boss you can do before he says the security problem is something you will have to deal with, I need this to enable the sales dept to do their job effecively.
The real problem is that Micorsoft are allowed to use their position as primary OS retailer in order to enforce their dominance in other (Application) sectors over and over again. This is why they will not even try to release a version of Office for any platform except their own. And every time they do step over the legal (monopolistic) line all they every get is a slap on the wrist compared to the huge profits it makes them year in, year out.
And if I was in their position I would never change either. The only thing that will ever change the corporate ethos in their case is if the company is forcibly cut into two halves. But this will never happen as the OS division would never be able to stand on it own feet when having to compete with one side giving the OS away free to earn service revenue (Redhat) and the other side giving their OS away free in order to sell hardware (Apple). Legislators always hate shafting a profit making company in their own backyard especially one with the media ear as much as MS.
And to all the linux enthusiasts who might claim that linux will win in the end - I hope so. But reality is that until linux developers start adapting a more pragmatic, business led point of view this will never happen.
The best example of this blinkered point of view is Linus Torvalds refusing to allow a binary API for driver communication in the kernel.
It is nothing but good business sense to try and hide that you are selling the consumer the same old crappy graphics card from last year with improved driver software. You escape the Moore's Law problem of the same product halving in value by repackaging it. But this would be alot harder if you had to publish all the hardware specs so you avoid this by locking that all away from prying eyes with a layer of intellectual property that nobody else can touch (or reverse engineer).
But if you then have to publish all the internal specs of your card to allow someone you do not know to write the interface software then selling the public last years card becomes alot harder as you have to convince them to play ball. This is why most companies require signing an NDA in order to get the specs of their hardware.
So to anybody who has actually read this far in this rant it should have become clear that the other real problem is capitalism. It is not a system based around doing what is best but in doing what nets you the greatest return on investment in your tenure at that company. So if you agree with this try and change it, otherwise try and make as much money as you can then retire early so it becomes someone elses problem while you live in the Bahamas.
I dont read
If you could put back on your old hat as a customer, if I came in and started talking to you about virtualization on Linux, and this Microsoft guy showed up and started talking to you about virtualization on Windows, what would you say to us?
What a weirdly constructed phrase. If I was the customer I would say, wtf are you talking about? Or I might say, get the fuck out of here, I'm not interested in your virtualization marketing-speak.
What I need as a customer is for things to become mre clean, simple, consistent, stable, secure, etc, I don't need yet another layer of shit on top of the layers of poop that are already there.
If I'm a CIO, that's what I'm dealing with: "What are you guys doing to make my life easier to make those things work together?" I saw virtualization as a key to us being able to do that in a different manner than we have in the past.
Why? So instead of two dual core systems I can now buy one quad core? Except the two dual core systems would always run smoother because there's less resource contention?
Is virtualization really what the market demands nowadays??
"Theoretically I suppose that would be true. But competent Windows administrators deem to be quite rare compared to decent enough Linux administrators."I work in a mostly Windows environment and consider myself to be a competent Windows administrator (I'm also competent in *NIX though), and I would almost agree with this.
I would say that competant Windows is no more rare than competant Linux help. They both roughly as rare, as in the case of both Windows and Linux, an admin needs to have a clue as to what's going on under the hood to be considered competent. The problem with finding Windows help is that there is a lot more wok involved in separating the wheat from the chaff.
In finding Windows help, I think companies make the mistake of simply not offering enough money, as they base their salary offering on the "average" salary of Windows administrators. The salaries of the incompetent monkeys in the pool of Windows admins bring down that average quite a bit, which leads companies to falsely believe that a competant Windows administrator costs less than a Linux administrator.
Thus companies end up getting what they pay for when they hire Windows help.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
We never changed our position. All I cared about was, I lost a deal with a large retailer to Microsoft for the first time about 12 or 18 months ago. It was going to be an all-Linux deal, and I lost it because they were unduly influenced, in my opinion, to be fearful of these [IP and indemnity issues]. From my point of view that was really too bad, because Linux lost. Then I watched it happen three more times.
Perhaps he would have been better off reminding them that Microsoft customers don't get IP idemnity either. IIRC, Microsoft's customers were sued by Timeline for using code which Microsoft improperly integrated into SQL server. Then, the Eolas suit caused Microsoft to issue a patch which removed functionality from Internet Explorer. I am not aware of Microsoft compensating its customers in either case.
I think Ron really failed Novell with this recent Microsoft deal. Actions speak louder than words; no matter what he says, he's sent a clear message to the world that Novell believes Linux infringes on Microsoft IP. Microsoft agreed to the deal because they knew it had a strategic advantage against Linux, not because they wanted to help Novell.
It never was about IP - his lost customers were bluffing. He might have won the deals had he been a better salesman:
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