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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
The one video that sums up this patent deal is this one by Eben Moglen
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
- 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
Microsoft is successfully splitting the Linux marketing into Dangerous Litigation Minefield and Peace of Mind Secure sides for the business world.
And the Linux/Open Source crowd have been in a mad rush to 'prove just how open minded they are' to the world, because 'Microsoft isn't ALWAYS evil, you know' and other such blather.
Instead of cutting Novell's air supply off with prejudice making it clear that any other distro that aids Microsoft in their Patent War against Linux/Open Source would be treated the same way, the open source crowd posted a few worthless +5 Insightful diatribes on Slashdot and other forums and then went right back to using Novell's Linux distros.
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.
If you knew.........nevermind.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
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.
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!!!
Over the past year several of Novell's msGNU/Linux employees have left:
Robert Love - beagle, kernel, now at Google
Joe Shaw - beagle, not at ITA Software
Crispin Cowan and the entire AppArmor team (fired en-masse)
plus others I can't remember off the top of my head
Who of note is still drawing a Novell check?
Miguel de Icaza, mono
Nat Friedman, "chief technology and strategy officer for open source" (but mighty quiet lately)
Greg Kroah-Hartman, kernel
And the ire of the fanboy is the most dangerous thing to those who oppose free standards
Everything clever I considered putting here I got from other slashdot sigs.
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.
Ballmer? Is that you?
CHAIR!
Most of the stuff on
I was talking to a Novell sales support person this evening. I asked him what the effect had been of the Novell/Microsoft deal and he replied that Microsoft is now Novell's biggest OEM partner, he said that Microsoft have sold ~60,000 SUSE licenses with support, at about $5,000 each. $300 million is not a laughing matter.
Microsoft has realized that there are some things that Linux does better than Windows, especially in the server area, and wanted to guarantee a piece of the action. So far they seem to have succeeded. Novell gets the support business, Microsoft gets to keep a customer..
Doesn't piss me off at all. Your reference to "99% of slashdotters" as "you guys" rather makes me think you're a 1 percenter (or like to think of yourself that way) with an axe to grind.
It's difficult for many companies to admit they've made a horrible mistake. Look at a one year stock price chart of RHAT v NOVL http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=1y&s=RHT&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=novl
Sure SuSE can claim some client wins. So can Red Hat, as their current agreements with Amazon show. That sort of thing is annecdotal noise. Novell's earning per share haven't changed a cent from four quarters ago, as stated in SEC filings. They're exactly what they were a year ago, when the agreement was made. Red Hat's are up 17%. In your words, "Know that."
BTW, in the reference you cite, the *only* specific technology that was mentioned by name was Microsoft's User Interface Automation specification. Which the article went on to say, "The Redmond giant added that it will not assert any patents necessary to implement the specification against anyone, regardless of platform, in the open source and proprietary software communities." So amongst the corporate PR platitudes, the only specific item mentioned provides no business advantage to SuSE.
Yes, this agreement probably will continue. Until SuSE's board come to their senses. It hasn't been good for Linux or SuSE's investors. The only winner has been Microsoft. IOW, it's been the same story as the vast majority of all partnerships with Microsft.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
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.
I'd say it's had a huge impact. A lot of anti-corporate types have bleated on about it, consistently hoping to hell that it has an impact as proof of the evilness of allowing corporations into our FOSS world. I've had a lot of headaches reading the repetitiveness.
As it is the deal is irrelevant. All it has done is proven many have a capacity to shoot themselves (and those around them) in the foot. The only real damage has been done by our own. Of course MS knew that people would go off the deep end, which is the impact they hoped for. Makes the community look immature and that has the potential to scare off pointy headed types.