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Has the Novell/Microsoft Deal Made a Difference?
willdavid writes "The deal between Microsoft and Novell was announced a little more than a year ago, and it's hard to judge what impact the deal has really had on the marketplace (if any). The two groups claim to have signed up 30 new customers (including heavyweights like Costco and Southwest Airlines), but it will still be some time before any real changes will be felt. 'Regardless of what impact the deal has triggered in the marketplace over the past year, ultimately it's about meeting market requirements. "The fact is that the vast majority of businesses do not want homogeneous IT infrastructures," Pund-IT analyst King said. "Instead, they want to be able to better and more easily manage their IT assets no matter what hardware or OS platforms they buy. Microsoft and Novell deserve congratulations on their one-year anniversary, but the needs of Linux and Windows customers are as much responsible for the partnership as the companies themselves."'"
My Novell server is still disconnected.
Most of the stuff on
- More than 3000 people/companies have moved away from SuSE, OpenSuSE and Novell products [0]
- Novell is going to incorporate GPL3 [1]
- Vista still sucks
[0] - http://techp.org/p/1
[1] - http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS3755005405.html
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
So last year around Christmas I break down and finally buy an iPod. There's pallets of iPods and they're moving, by the looks of it. There's also a pallet of Zunes. Looks like they've sold about 5 players.
Making a deal with CostCo to sell your stuff doesn't mean people will buy it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The only problem I have with the deal is that I'm unable to find the download links to the new software that helps my linux and windows pcs connect better and become easier to manage.
"The fact is that the vast majority of businesses do not want homogeneous IT infrastructures," Pund-IT analyst King said. "Instead, they want to be able to better and more easily manage their IT assets no matter what hardware or OS platforms they buy. Microsoft and Novell deserve congratulations on their one-year anniversary, but the needs of Linux and Windows customers are as much responsible for the partnership as the companies themselves.'"
I dont think any of that actually means anything. No really, it sounds like a bunch of Manager type talk but nothing concrete. All ideas and no real tangibles.
>> You should hear the utter contempt the folks at Microsoft in
>> charge of taking on Linux have for you open source folks.
>> Your Weakness sickens them.
What actually sickens them is that GOOG is trading at about $660/share.
It's caused a ton of friction between Novell and big chunk of the rest of the Linux community.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
How do you measure the impact?
How many companies have been terrified to look at Linux now that Microsoft is screaming that Linux users are violating patents? Didn't SCO use the same tactics, and everyone berated them for it? SCO's stolen code they wouldn't point out is the same as the unlisted patents that Microsoft feels are violated.
Novell paid to license patents, and in doing so, they cast a shadow of guilt on all Linux distros. Can you quantify and put on a pie chart a FUD factor? Can you count how many users move from one distro to the other, when we don't have counts in the first place?
And what of the other distros that ended up signing deals as well?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Because there are more than just MS and Novell involved. And because there are issues of trust at stake.
Look at it this way: suppose you find out I've been talking to your neighborhood thief. Suppose you find out that I've taken money from him to keep lookout while he robs your house. Suppose I then turn around to you and say "it's all right, your house has good locks, he's never going to get. Why shouldn't I take his money and laugh all the way to the bank?". Would you find that reassuring?
Most people would not, I think, and rightly so. I've given no indication that, if the thief did get in, I would do anything to stop him; I've shown a willingness to collaborate with lawbreakers in your town; and I've demonstrated a worrying willingness to betray my associate that suggests I may betray others just as lightly. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
In Novell's case, they've demonstrated a worrying disdain for the community that developed most of the software they sell, and they've given themselves a financial incentive to include MS patents in the code they contribute. And in doing so, they've lost the trust of a large portion of the community, trust which may prove difficult to regain. And while it's true that doesn't seem to particularly worry Novell, the fact that they hold the community in such low regard is worrying in itself.
What it boils down to, I think, is that stratagems that work well in purely commercial environments don't always work so well in the world of free software. That, for my money, is "why not".
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
This must *really* piss you guys off:
Microsoft and Novell extend alliance
I know that 99% of slashdotters desperately want the MS/Novell deal to flop, but you're going to have to accept the fact that it's here to stay. And it's causing companies to switch to Novell at Red Hat's expense. Know that.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Novell has some 5000 employees. You find it odd that some have left? (only two have stated that they left because of any deal). Novell/SUSE have more developers working on the Linux desktop than anyone else; that's many core KDE, GNOME, OOo, GCC, Kernel, and ALSA developers. So, a _lot_ of people there of note :)
Figures on what? In terms of contribution to the Linux desktop? I'm not sure there is any competition. While Red Hat is fully pushing the server into new avenues everywhere (which is of course great), SUSE are doing this on the server and the desktop. They have actively pursued the Linux desktop and have taken it very seriously, as you can see by their acquisitions of Ximian and SUSE. There is simply no other company that even really competes with the same level of consistent contribution throughout the whole desktop.
It cost them Jeremy Allison, and ruined any potential leadership in the file-server and Samba-based Windows-compatible server market. Given the choice between Microsoft patent protection, and actually having developers like Jeremy to write the code and make it work, I'd take Jeremy and his ilk everytime. In fact, I do so, and have submitted several proposals in the last year for storage solutions that carefully avoid Microsoft and Novell, for exactly this sort of reason.