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Microsoft Paid Novell $356 Million in '07
Anonymous writes "At the end of this piece at Channelweb.com, it's reported that Microsoft paid Novell $355.6 million last year as part of their 'interoperability' deal. It's no small wonder, then, that Novell executives are saying the deal has been a huge success so far."
their soul?
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
It'd be interesting to see if the money they got from their customers in '07 equals or exceeds that number.
If it doesn't, I'd think they have a somewhat skewed and short-sighted definition of success. Me, I'd call it getting paid off.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
It illustrates that Novell can no longer be trusted to push Linux technologies beyond that which is offered by Microsoft.
I used to know some really rabid SUSE fans a few years ago. They would go on and on about how it was the best distro and great YaST was. I haven't heard anything from them in a while. I can only imagine what their opinion on the last year is.
How much did Novell pay Microsoft in other areas though?
And I all I got was this lousy T-Shirt?
Have a squat over at the hobo house.
there are two ways to control corporations:
1. government regulations
2. free market competition
in a Free Society the government is supposed to be for The People. and it should act as an arbiter of fairness in respect to the above, insuring that access to the market is available to entrepreneurs, and that monopolies do not form, either in fact or by collusion
the above sounds like a Pretty Tall Order. But We the People do have all the legal authority necessary to insure that we do have a proper Free Society. It all starts with the Freedom of Speech and Assembly as the reader will note that to make use of their legal authority to control the government the people must act collectively
to act collectively requires communications, leadership, and organization.
in our world today we have better communication than ever, by means of electronic technology. the latter elements are often manipulated by demagogues
Did Novell provide Full Service? Greek? Microsoft, were you happy the encounter? If yes, I have my wallet ready.
Redhat has lots of government and telco contracts, does that mean that we can't trust them either? Because who is a bigger threat Microsoft or the NSA?
It'd be interesting to see if the money they got from their customers in '07 equals or exceeds that number.
Novell, Inc. ( NASDAQ:NOVL ) reported total revenue of $932.5 million dollars for the year to October 2007.
http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=ii&q=NOVL/
Many of us suspect that Microsoft is behind SCO. Could it be that Novell somehow has Microsoft over a barrel?
It may be that Novell hasn't sold its soul at all. It is really hard to see that Microsoft got any value for its money.
Novell can be trusted as long as they use the GPL, since it is mostly incorruptible by its nature. If you start seeing them stray from the GPL, then you can start worrying.
So it is perhaps MS that is paying for our open source radeonhd driver? See http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeonhd...
Years ago Corel was developing WordPerfect for Linux, and the along come Microsoft, and gave them a huge sum of cash to cease all development of WP for Linux, and now look at where they are now...Novell is going to suddenly realize years down the road that they really did sell out, and there's no going back, and it's obvious that the owners of the company don't give 2 shits, so now Microsoft will find some way to weasel Linux from the world. Yay for interoperability...whatever the hell that means, and what is involved!
http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/06/11/08/0244242.shtml
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
I thought that, in the IT world, progress was supposed to lower costs - witness many technology items that have gotten cheaper over the years. However, when it comes to anti-Linux FUD, it seems the price keeps going *up*.
Why is that?
No single customer accounted for more than 10% of our revenue in fiscal 2007, 2006, or 2005. During fiscal 2007, we received $355.6 million from Microsoft related to the Microsoft agreements discussed above, which is being recognized over future periods. They received it but aren't recognizing it until later?! What does that mean exactly? Will it be passed on as bonuses to top execs and board members? It sounds like some sort of trick in reporting requirements. "We received a bunch of money, but we don't want to show that we're giving it to the people who made the deal... until later when no one is looking."
I would have thought 640k would be enough for anyone.
that marijuana is illegal in the same country Microsoft is legally allowed to do whatever they want is pathetic. if your justice system is so high why can't I be?
ie received vs. recognized (see parent)
...it's called "blood money" in the Holy Bible.
The funny part is that Novell is fighting SCO who are/were financed by MS.
hardly
the government is a huge, out of control bureaucracy
the people by fiat have representatives who do have the authority to alter the government in any desired manner. but this mechanism is de facto controlled by ?
= ? = what do you need to get yourself elected? what does anyone need to get elected?
==> name recognition
= ? = how do you get name recognition ?
answering these questions to yourself *honestly* will help
What do we even know anymore? How deep does MS go in the USA?
Does Microsoft's Monopoly Power Extend to Government and Media?
Okay, so Microsoft tells that GNU/Linux (or is it just Linux?) has 253 (?) Microsoft patents and companies should pay for Microsoft for using that technology. BUT, Microsoft pays for Novell big amount of cash and it looks so silly, like Microsoft would be the one who is using 253 ideas of technology and is paying for those companies for using it ;-)
Novell will pay Microsoft based on how many sales of SUSE Linux they make (for software patents). Please stay away from Novell products if you care about Free software. Thank you.
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
Tag this newsstory "animalfarm"... :-/
But hey, let's be optimistic. If such revenues increase they might buy Microsoft out...
This is hush-money to make sure Novell doesn't drag MS to court to find out what went on behind the curtains of the SCO show.
OK, I am willing enter into a non compete agreement with MSFT. Bill, where do I collect my money?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
3. Unfair competition
4. Moral/ethical pressure
5. Union actions
6. Fraud
7. Monpoly manipulation
I've got a list of all the reasons Novell sucks now. I'm making a note here: "Huge success".
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
A "confession" by Ron Hovsepian that "Linux" contains Microsoft IP, even though Microsoft has yet to prove any infringements exist.
How? By paying Microsoft a ROYALTY for each copy of SLES that it sells Novell is making an implied statement that its distro contains MS IP.
Ballmer called the payments "an IP bridge". He could have said the payments were an admission of guilt.
Microsoft has a problem though. They've been claiming that Linux violates their IPs for several years now. The law requires that they inform infringers of the exact infringements so that damages can be mitigated. Microsoft has not done that.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Thanks MS!
Accrual accounting isn't a trick used to balance out taxes or any of the other stuff you mentioned. Accrual accounting is part of the GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) and is required by the SEC. You don't recognize revenue until you actually expend the effort required to earn that revenue.
If you sell someone a 3-year contract which they pay you for upfront, you don't declare the money they gave you as income on this years balance sheet because you haven't incurred all the costs associated with that revenue yet. You prorate the income over the period of the contract and each year or quarter you recognize both the revenue and the cost associated with that contract on that year or quarters balance sheet. It's the only way to keep your balance sheet from grossly misstating your business situation.
Mmmm.. Donuts
I am not an expert when it comes to the Novell-MS deal, and I am not an expert on the SCO case either, but what if they are connected? What I mean is this: maybe Microsoft aren't interested in Linux all that much, but they might have some IP that they licensed from SCO, and to avoid any problems with that they contacted Novell with the IP protection idea, seeing as they knew Novell was gonna win. Then the agreement could have evolved to also include other things, such as the whole Linux part that gets all the attention these days. Anyone have more details?
Press Release
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has stated that he believes the Microsoft-Novell relationship has been a success for both parties but is just part one of a grand strategy to further cement Microsoft's dominance. Building on that success, Microsoft will now take that strategy to a whole new level: instead of just paying software vendors to not develop for Linux, Microsoft will now pay consumers to use Windows Vista. "It's a win-win for all of us." said CEO Ballmer.
Gardener analyst Robert Thompson agrees, "You want people to downgrade? You must pay."
EvilCON - Made Famous by
open source projects are predicated on an agreement to share work
and that is OK, -- anyone can agree to place their work in the public domain -- or to reserve a copyright. that is up to the original authors
but that has no bearing on the fact that the availability of patent and copyright protections have served to help provide financial incentives for the development of many good works
the absence of such protection is a dis-incentive to spending capital on research and development
and no, you and John Lennon may not "borrow" my "ink pen" and just adopt it while singing "imagine no possessions"
Hey, don't knock companies which bend over for Uncle Bill's hot cash injection. It seemed to have worked out pretty well for Slashdot's darling Apple.
And heck, 99.999% of Slashdotters don't even remember it happened, and 100% will deny it anyway.
You would think *someone* would go and check the numbers. 300+ million dollars is the "bookings" number for the next five years, that is to say, what Microsoft will actually pay Novell ("billings") over that time under the agreement.
./ readers ever knew what they are yakking about and use the right numbers.
:-)
And that does not include what Novell pays to Microsoft. Novell netted less than 100M$ (I am not sure I am authorized to say the number, so I won't) in "cash money" for the year from "the agreement", as anyone with 5th grade math and reading ability could figure.
So yes, it is a smashing success, but it would be nice if
Oh, wait, I think I will go bash Miguel instead
...but I switched to Linux Mint.
Right...and of course, those complaining about Novell dealing with Microsoft wouldn't agree to accept Microsoft's licensing of unspecified and unvalued patents in exchange for also accepting $356 million? I wonder how much would people would let 'appearances' bother them in such a position?
I advocated and used SuSE on server and desktop and laptop, but three days after the Microsoft-Novell thing hit I dumped the SuSE. Now I'm Debian for server and (K)Ubuntu for desktop. (Ubuntu is Debian with lipstick, by the way)
Has anybody noticed that the quality of Open SuSE has gone seriously downhill since the announcement? The fonts are just plain ugly and the usability has gotten significantly worse. I spent some time making some basic changes to make it usuable and came to the conclusion that someone must have been really trying to make it that ugly and user-unfriendly. Could it be that Novell has an incentive to remove itself as a competitor?
This is just my opinion, of course.
Let's see... Novell was a major player in making Evolution a viable alternative to Outlook. Microsoft did a deal with Novell some time ago, and Evolution has been sucking harder ever since. Particularly the Exchange connector part, which is the only reason I was still using it instead of Thunderbird. Now my company is on Exchange 2007, and Evolution crashes whenever it tries to connect to that. This is a problem that has been known for months, and IT STILL HASN'T BEEN FIXED.
Can you smell the stink? Microsoft is paying Novell to kill Evolution.
That's all I can say. Wow. That's a lot of money...for what?
Why is it I can't find funding for my game? That's what I always think when I read about massive expenditures on nothing, like this.
expandfairuse.org
The main reason why Novell did that is because customer ask for that ! When you are a compagny, you need to listen to your customer ... Customer need to be sure that both os will be supported when they use together ! Is a big win for Linux ! Now, with this deal, we will see more Linux !! Please stop to tell that is a bad thing !
Since this is the new year and everyone is making predections, let me make this one. In a few years Micsosoft will be the driving force for widespread Linux adoption. They will package their own distro. In the end the masses will believe MS created Linux or at least made it usable for the masses.
I don't know how this will happen, but you have to admit it is so crazy that it could become a reality!
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
distributor of linux for IP infringement after Novell wins there case against SCO?
But, the ultimate intent of a patent is to force that innovation to be documented, so that -- once the initial patent period expires -- everybody will then be able to replicate and use that new technology (in a competitive manner)
What is happening with patents, now, however, is that people are getting away with patenting things like the one-click patent that does little more than use a standard (cookies) in the way that they were intended to be used (to store informaiton across and within HTML sessions).
part of the intent of patents was that they were meant for things that would not have been otherwise invented -- In other words, If I was to tell you (in general terms) what a patented invention does, most experts in the field should not be able to figure out how it was done without reading the patent....
In other words, things like patent trolls and submarine patents are repugnant to the intent and purpose of the patent system. If, despite the fact that you've never produced a product with your patent protection, a huge number of people have been using 'your' so-called innovation without having to read your patent documents (or your patent documents are so opaque that nobody would have been able to do anything with it anyways), then your patent is not forwarding innovation and should never have been issued in the first place.
The fact that people are 'violating' patents without ever looking them up is actually proof that the patent system is broken for software patents, not proof that developers are flagrant infringers. It means that, rather than providing a protective bridge for true innovators to be able to get their product to market, patents have become more of a minefield to be used against anybody who really does produce an innovative product but doesn't have enough money to document the hundreds of obstructive and obvious patents that are required to successfully wage a patent war against another big company.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Don't worry, I bet R** H** will soon join the MS friends club with a specially "selected" new CEO.