Slashdot Mirror
Novell Linux Business Spikes Since Microsoft Deal
StonyandCher writes "Novell's divisive deal with Microsoft has apparently resulted in some financial success for the company. PC World is now reporting that the company's Linux business has risen about 250% since the deal was announced last November. From the article: '[Novell director of marketing Justin Steinman] said part of its growth was directly related to the Microsoft deal, adding that Novell has billed more than US$100 million in business through its Microsoft relationship. He added that the growth was also due to the halo effect of the arrangement. "When we're out there competing with Red Hat, [our salespeople] are saying, 'Our Linux is recommended by Microsoft,' and customers that already have a Windows investment say it seems to make sense to pick the Linux that works with Windows."'"
If this isnt a PR pushed document, I dont know what is.... Of course Novell's business increased simply due to the fact of M$ handing out vouchers to people which M$ then ends up paying for when they give it to someone. What they would like to give the impression is that this makes people feel safe, so they go this route instead of the unsafe route with RedHat. You will also notice that they did not point out the Redhat had an amazing quarter as well with them attributing it to botched Vista rollout.... Hm... I wonder why they felt compelled to release this press release now?? :-)
I've met plenty of Windows-centric IT people who seem to think networking is some sort of black magic
I'm not surprised. Getting two Windows boxes to talk to each other on a network is black magic.
This is blatantly incorrect. I can connect SuSE to our Active Directory during installation through a GUI quite easily, or after installation at any time through the YaST administrative utility. In a Microsoft environment, SuSE makes things easy.
Ubuntu, on the other hand, requires roughly 3 hours of hacking and coding. Canonical has no interest whatsoever in making it play nice with Windows beyond implementing and supporting SMB.