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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.
Did Novell provide Full Service? Greek? Microsoft, were you happy the encounter? If yes, I have my wallet ready.
As long it's a great distro (OpenSuse) I don't see any problem using it. Novel made Yast open source btw, something SUSE never did.
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/
Unfortunately, it's the government itself, through patents and copyrights, which is acting to perpetuate the existing monopolies.
A fair society shouldn't have the current intellectual property laws. Patents shouldn't be given to processes and methods, only to specific mechanisms. Copyrights shouldn't be given to trade secrets, only to open publications. No copyrights for executable code, unless the source code is also provided. No coprights for copy-protected material, because if you use DRM you don't need the protection of the law.
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.
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!
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.
Actually, I think it's a whole non-issue at the moment, until the waters are less muddy, and only time will tell that.
For interoperability, Novell SLES is pretty pleasant. I work for the NHS in the UK, and moving hospitals away from being almost pure Windows is not an easy thing. SLES fills a lot of niches that Windows currently fills (file server, database platform et.), for a fraction of the cost. One of the things I'm working on is to make greater use of SLES. And if you point to Red Hat, and say "Well, they do the same product, except they're more idealistic", Red Hat don't have a current deal with the NHS (where Novell do, and provide fantastic pricing).
Couple that with eDirectory, Identity Manager etc. and you've got a lovely heterogenous infrastructure to play with.
I like Novell. Yes, they took money from the Beast. However, the Beast is currently being watched very carefully, and has a lot of other (probably unexpected) battles to fight.
I tend to run Ubuntu and Debian for home use (and quick build servers/firewalls). But in business, you need to bring a lot of other factors in. And for something the size of the NHS, alas, you can't always choose the idealistic route. Pragmatism and practicality are large factors.
As long as SLES keeps on being a great product, performing well, and being a really low cost product (for a commercially supported enterprise grade OS), I'll keep on using it.
There are many ways of accounting for income. Most individuals use "cash" accounting, which among other things means you pay taxes on your income in real-time, as you receive it. In contrast, many businesses use "accrual" accounting which is slightly more complicated but in summary gives them more flexibility on when to pay taxes on monies received--- and also prevents them from using one-off events to sway their tax burden unfairly. Standard stuff for corporations, nothing nefarious here.
In layman's terms, all Novell is saying is that "We received this huge influx of cash all at once, but the money doesn't represent income in the traditional sense. Thus, to prevent us using this number to misrepresent our actual earnings, we have to spread it out over several years."
b.g.
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 ;-)
"patents and copyrights are what entice entrepreneurs to make improvements"
So, let me tell you about this opensource thing...
"our protection of intellectual property is one of the elements that has made us the prosperous society that we are"
Our 'protection' of intellectual 'property' has kept us as far less prosperous society than we could have been.
Competition is what drives innovation and the evolution of technology. Handing out intellectual monopolies slows that innovation and evolution. Protecting someone from competition makes them slow and inefficient; to realize exactly how inefficient you just need to look at the former Soviet state-run businesses, or other state-protected monopolies in the west.
Just imagine the world we'd be living in today, had technology been allowed to develop competetively. Imagine the medicines we'd have if 'protected' pharmacorps couldnt spend 80% of their revenue on administration and marketing. Imagine the operating systems we'd have if most of the resources spent on them didnt get tied up in a single company that cant even produce a product better than their last one after six years (nevermind being outevolved by a rag-tag bunch of companies and individuals working in a _competetive segment_ with _unprotected_ software).
Patents and copyrights are a blight upon the economy and upon innovation.
I expect some Marketing Drone in Microsoft is at this moment cooking up their next FUD Campaign around the theme that SUSE is 'sort of ok' if you really, really have to use something other than our fantastic Windows products.
As far as at least one Microsoft Account manager I know, if they absolutely have to lose a sale to Linux, then it had better be to Novell/SUSE than the devil incarnate called RedHat.
IMHO, SLES/SLED is just different enough from RHEL/Fedora that I get frustrated when I have to make changes to root level config scripts etc just for SUSE. sort of like having to code web pages specifically for IE.
And even though, I normally prefer a GNOME desktop but with more bits of it being written using MONO, I am getting more and more uneasy about using it for the long term. I do think there is a risk from Microsoft getting tough about licensing with MONO etc.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
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!
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
Which GPL? GPLv3 includes changes aimed very specifically at preventing another of these patent protection deals, and putting a spike in Microsoft attempts to encumber open source projects with patent agreements. The GPL needed to evolve to prevent this and some of the DRM craziness being attempted, and has. But will Novell follow suit by publishing its own software or changes under GPLv3?
I think not.