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Novell and Microsoft Claim Customer Support
munchola writes "Novell and Microsoft have commissioned a survey to prove that customers love their interoperability and patent deal. According to the survey 'Ninety-five percent approve of the collaboration between Novell and Microsoft,' while 'four out of five believe their organization would consider doing more business with Linux dealers if Linux providers establish an alliance with Microsoft.' As CBRonline notes, however: 'Few people have claimed the deal is bad for Novell or Microsoft's customers. The question has been whether it is good for the open source movement, open source developers, or indeed Novell itself. Those issues do not appear to have been addressed by the survey.'"
Or did they commision multiple surveys with different wording and cherry-pick the one they liked most? It is marketing, after all.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
...if businesses using Linux were to suddenly find themselves without support one day because their Linux partner has just lost a legal battle against Microsoft, they probably wouldn't like it as much.
Just saying.
Basilisk Digital
Here I thought they were announcing they were actually going to support their customers.
Move along, nothing to see here.
What?
The people on Slashdot and other such forums and Novell's paying customers are mostly not the same people.
Basilisk Digital
Neither MS or Novell control our software, only we control our software. It is a hard lesson that many companies need to learn, they are not in control the developers are ultimately in control. The minute you alienate the developers in this type of environment you have already set up your ultimate demise.
Got Code?
Not to spit on the results of your own personal survey here (actually, it really is), but could that possibly be because 'me and my Linux pals' aren't exactly a representative sample of the computing community?
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
That'd be the point -- pleasing or angering noisy teenage Lunix fanboys has no effect on Novell's paying customer base.
Do you think that the recent interoperability and patent deal between Microsoft and Novel is
A) GoodB) Very Good
C) Not bad at all
Customers *always* like to hear that their vendors are playing nice-nice together; the details matter little -- at least in the short run. ... Or maybe it's just that Microsoft and Novell have wowed 'em with these cool billboards that are beckoning drivers in the Bay Area and Massachusetts:6
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/963
How can a survey like this go unnoticed by the Slashdot audience untill after it's been conducted ?
Did anyone here actually participate in this survey ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Careful Novell. I'm almost positive Microsoft has patents that cover these sorts of bullshit surveys.
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
But isn't that the same thing?
JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION DAMN IT!
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
why even bother reporting such nonsense?
it's not news, it's BS.
I suggest slashdot and others ignore it altogether instead of indignantly reporting it.
As far as I concern, some of the businesses do care if they can transfer their infrastructure among different Linux distros / Unices.
By forming alliance with Microsoft, Novell is promoting some sort of vendor lock-in, which will eventually lead to Microsoft's eclipse of Linux's (including Novell and other Linux vendors) market
95% of the people using a computer don't understand it at all.
Coincidence?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Warning: Opinion and Anecdotal discussion to follow; one size does NOT fit all.
All this focus on interoperability is ASSUMING businesses care about operating with Windows. Certainly some do, and they may care about interoperability issues. Others don't; I know my consulting business is a near-nonexistent speck in the grand scheme of things, but I care not one whit about interoperating with Windows. My business is Linux based, and when I set up protocols for dealing with clients, they include cross-platform data formats.
The only time I care about interop with Windows is when a client has a specific need - like the VPN I designed for a client last year. And what I found in that project was 99.99% of ALL the project headaches came from Windows - activation issues, 2003 Server licensing issues, 2003 Server MTU problems, etc.
Anymore, if a client is completely Windows centric and demands a Windows centric solution to their problem, I typically to not even submit a proposal. That's how I view all this interoperability stuff - it is the OTHER players that must conform to the Windows way of doing things; there is no INTERoperability (imho) - it's "operate with Windows' closed way of doing everything, or go play somewhere else."
Well, my business is playing somewhere else. My experience, and those of my clients, is that the solutions I provide LAST and don't force them into Vendor Lock-In and similar, related nonsense. As I said above, this approach is not for everybody.
Computational Chemistry products and services.
General Augusto Pinochet was "elected" supreme ruler of Chile again.
"According to the survey 'Ninety-five percent approve of the collaboration"
Collaboration indeed. Collaborators will be shot.
--
BMO
Is this a new version of Microsoft "Get the facts"?
From the article: "PSB is a strategic communications firm that specializes in research-based recommendations for its clients. PSB has conducted research studies for Microsoft over the past 8 years." Wow, a POSITIVE survey that was commissioned by Microsoft, to the customers of Microsoft, by a company who regularly does commissioned reports for Microsoft. Who woulda thought?
The thing I don't get about Microsoft, is that they don't really need this deal with Novell. This is afterall about the server market. In the server market, Microsoft is not just an OS vendor, they have other mission critical software that connects to many other machines. For instance, Active Directory. If Microsoft made Active Directory interoperable with *nix clients, then I think that Active Directory use would go up. Afterall, Active Directory's market is limited to those whose datacenters are mostly Windows. What about the rest of the world that probably has some kind of hybrid. Some Windows here, some Linux there, maybe some Unix or even a Mac server thrown in somewhere. For these types of situations, they either use something like OpenLDAP or maybe use a third party AD add-on for the interoperability. Most are probably using a *nix based solution. If Active Directory were able to handle any client, I think more companies would consider AD since it would be more flexible. If you're all windows, using AD locks you into more windows and makes adding a linux server very difficult. On the desktop market, MS have a monopoly they can exploit, but not so much with the server market. The same should be applied to MS SQL server, Exchange and all the rest. The more flex you give the customer, the more likely they are to choose your product (unless it's a complete piece of crap)
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
I've been an ardent Novell supporter for 15 years and am a certified CNE on NW 4.x and 5.x. They've been messed up at marketing for a long time but always made great technology. Now I feel they've abandoned the tech community, after finally finding a path that might lead to their long term existence after Netware. I'll never again support or recommend Novell products to anyone, no matter what their clearly biased surveys say.
I'm running NetWare 6.5, GroupWise 7.01 and ZENworks 6.0 and I am not happy with this "deal".
Nor will I ever recommend Novell products until Novell changes their attitude.
Customers aren't qualified to comment, as in political surveys. They also tend to be management types who have a pathological need to seem smart.
Coupled with the psychological predisposition, given no additional evidence, an affirmative response will be provided.
Such that if you asked:
Do you think, in general, that it is a good idea that Wizerbangslopinpop and Akerwhackdoodle are snifflewagging the shooterscoots?
They'll say yes most of the time. Nor will they be inclined to ask questions as this would mean they are not "in the know", which is presumably why the survey people are asking them in the first place. (Of course, the marketdroids just tell them this because it gets them in the door and some face time.)
The smarter ones will try to hedge around the unknowns to glean some sort of contextual meaning, but still are likely not to know what they are talking about.
Hence, the exercise is good for comic relief and spin-value, but not for much else.
On a personal note: When I was in High School (way too many years ago...*sigh*), I did a survey for extra credit in Psych. I had a simple survey for science class with a single question:
"For extra credit equivalent to a 9 weeks exam, would you take a frontal lobotomy instead?"
I admit that I tinkered with the context clues in the sentence by equating taking a test with the likely unknown "frontal lobotomy", however 65% (roughly) of the respondents (out of a pool of ~100) said they would be happy to.
The psych instructor got pretty irritated at having to explain that he was not going to perform lobotomies on students in lieu of a 9weeks exam. But, I did learn a great deal, laughed myself to tears, and I got an A!
Would you rather:
...
A) More companies enter into a similar patent agreement with Microsoft.
B) Have a hot poker shoved up your ass.
Would you use Linux more if:
A) More companies paid Microsoft to prevent Microsoft from bringing a harassment law suit against users.
B) Had a hot poker shoved up your ass.
Would you feel more confortable:
A) Doing business with companies who have partnered with Microsoft
B) Having a hot poker shoved up your ass.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
You sound like a typical sales guy, not that that's bad. They are always focused on what they can sell this quarter, and not concerned about two years out. Novel is probably also listening to their sales guys. I find they under-estimate the power of the open-source community, and resent it for not paying any commissions. Most paying customers for Linux ask a real geek which distro to buy, and that generally means one of us open-source guys. I had a client company ask me just this question last week, and the decision I helped them make (RedHat - definately NOT Suse for EDA), will probably grow with that company for at least a decade. I figure over the long-run, Novell is out possibly a million bucks, just for pissing me off. And I'm just one geek. Yeah, they ought to care.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
That the Open Source community IS the goose that lays the golden eggs. How WE feel is everything.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I want and like to use XP.
You are truly Microsoft's ideal customer.
If MS really cared about interoperability, they would not have been playing dirty tricks with APIs, protocols and file formats for the last twenty years. MS wants no part of Open Systems. Their talk about intellectual property rights is just a veiled threat, "buy from us or we'll pay some SCO-like operation to sue you."
The question that was missing from that survey is "do you trust Microsoft to keep their promises and not attempt to lock you into proprietary products?"
I run Suse on my machine, a desktop I depend on every single day for engineering work. I wasn't thrilled when Novell bought Suse, but I upgraded to Suse Linux 9.2 anyways. It says "NOVELL" on the box. I think it was about $80.
Well, guess what. Next time I build up a new 'puter or upgrade the OS on this one... I'm not going to use Suse, even thought it may not be as seamless a transition for me.
I feel a little bad, because the Gecko is kinda cute, and the "random phone support lady" that came up on the while-installing screen was really really hot (I cannot be the only one to notice this). But I depend on Open Source Software and I know who my friends are and aren't.
Becuase I don't like the deal, I'm not a customer anymore, and wouldn't be involved in Novell/Microsofts little survey. Does this prove my point or prove theirs, or both??
Let's face it. 'Surveys' like these and the ones from Gartner and the wonderful columns from people like Enderle are all to try and soothe the pointy-headed bosses and other execs so they think they know something about something happening in the server rooms of the world.
These sort of 'surveys' and the type of 'research' by these sorts of people/organizations is such a waste anyway. It is the equivalent of Cliff-Notes(TM) for the IT world so it makes perfect sense that some PHB will now come to one of us and say 'Hey, did you hear about the MS/Novell agreement, should make things even better for us eh?'
Geez, get back to work...
Since the actual wording of their agreement is still a secret, how do you know that they're providing any "protection" at all?
Since they've both stated that this agreement will expire in 5 years, why would I want to risk their products 6 years from now? Migrations are expensive.
When was the last time an end-user (not a distributor/vendor) was sued for patent infringement?
Statistically, if an end-user is being sued by Microsoft, that end-user already has a license agreement with Microsoft.
Microsoft does that all the time. Many of those stories are posted on
One of the PRIMARY advantages of Open Source for the end-user is the absence of license requirements. I have to spend time/effort/money making sure that the copies of MS-Office we use are licensed and that I have proof of those licenses. And that proof is acceptable to Microsoft should they ever audit us.
Yet I can deploy Linux without any CAL's or anything. And OpenOffice.org without any per seat requirements. And so on.
So, the "business case" is savings TODAY versus a nebulous threat that has never been exercised against any end-user in the past
It strikes me as a little unusual that nobody is making a bigger deal out of GPLv3 and how it will essentially nullify this deal or at the least put Novell in a very awkward situation. Even if Linus doesn't move the kernel over to v3, you can bet that glibc, gcc, etc, are all going to go that way. Try shipping a distro without either of those two.
Obviously Msft and Novl are more than aware of the licensing change so the question is what sort of insidious deal has msft given Novl in the back room? Truth is, if Novell ships GPLv3 software in SuSe then they stand to be liable for enormous damages, injunctions, etc. The patent indemnification nonsense they got from msft will be more than overshadowed by the ruckus created when Novell ignores the license that a significant section of code it ships is released under. Nothing would make msft happier than another round of FUD about Linux but what gain to Novell? cui bono for this upcoming crime? When asked about GPLv3 the Novl CEO said something casually dismissive like "oh, that license, it's still in development."
Something far more sinister is afoot than just Novl opting to be msft's lap dog.
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