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Novell's Linux Business Takes a Seat At the Grown-Up Table
CNet is reporting that while Novell still has a long way to go before they start making Red Hat nervous, they have at least gotten a seat at the grown-up table. Reporting 31% year-over-year growth in their Linux business, Novell attributes very little of this success to their Microsoft partnership, looking to their Redmond connection mainly for interoperability work. "Novell's core Linux business is growing. By 'core,' I mean that our non-Microsoft- related Linux business is growing. These are Suse Linux Enterprise Server subscriptions sold directly by the Novell sales force or by our channel partners, without any Microsoft certificates or Microsoft salespeople involved. However, the important thing is that our total revenue picture for Suse Linux Enterprise is growing, as our customers increasingly don't distinguish. As we've said before, Microsoft offers an alternate avenue for purchasing subscriptions but we are focused on growth of the whole category."
Go Novell. Competition = good
so that $367 million Microsoft paid Novell in 2007 alone had nothing to do with profitablity and growth. glad to hear it
That's what the flash Ad on this page says at least... "roll over for more". www.moreinterop.com
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
We are late arrivals in linux land. However we are deploying a new suse server a week to replace NT servers. We have gone from zero to 35% in little over 3 months. It really is linux for the enterprise made easy. And whats even better, the toolsets are free, opensuse is free, and no shitty activation codes. It's all gravy, to use a bad term ;)
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
According to this page, http://www.moreinterop.com/solutions/benefits/, they are "The Most Interoperable Open Source Platform on the Market Today"
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I will never purchase anything from novell. ever. they have signed agreements that microsoft intends to leverage to subvert the open source community. youd be blind not to see this and i want no part.
I was at Novell Brainshare recently with thousands of other people from all over the world. I'd have to say your assessment of Novel's position is way out in left field. You really have no idea what you are talking about, sorry.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Is this good news? Are novell sales up, in part, due to their dirty-deal with msft?
I could argue that apple and sun also benefited from their deals with msft.
But, long term, although the individual deals are often beneficial, at least in the short term; the long term effects of these deals is to further entrench msft standards.
JMHO.
While the parent's tone is strong, there are other factors besides the trojan horse microsoft has delivered to consider. The company is not financially healthy in any way, shape, or form. Management performance is still dismal. SuSe is not a silver bullet, or at least hasn't appeared to save the company.
Argue for a minute that SuSe saves their bacon, there's no proof Novell can out-manage RedHat. Let's say BOTH companies are viable growth assets, then I think Microsoft will open the trojan horse they sent to Novell at bare minimum.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Lameness filter of please
The first thing Novell did when they acquired SuSE was change the name to SUSE. Sort of thing that separates the amateurs from the pros. Like when Intergalactic Digital Research switched to a grownup name.
Ok, I use Linux and have since Slackware 1.1. I promote Linux as a more than viable alternative to the Redmond 'Lock in System'.
But, I see SUSE as the following.
A Linux system that you can buy (note not OpenSUSE) without the fear of being sued by Microsoft for the duration of the licensing agreement between the two companies.
For that reason, I would not recommend SUSE to any business at all. I might be legally wrong but that is how the tie up between Novell & MS seem to me a non Lawyer.
I do appreciate the stuff that Novell has contributed but personally, I won't touch anything that uses MONO with a 100m Barge Pole. Yes, I know it is apparently free of any potential patent liabilities but I see it as a trojan horse much like Moonlight.
IMHO, Microsoft wished that Novell, RedHat & Canonical would just disappear. They are not so I wish that for once they (MS that is) would say 'Ok guys, we will work properly with you for the pure benefit of our customers'. That is as likely (IMHO) as Concorde ever flying again.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
So, I actually went and R'd the FA, because I was curious about this phrase -- of course, it doesn't appear in the article, so I can only assume that it was the submitter's invention.
That said, what, exactly, constitutes the "grown-up table" and who sits there? Does it mean that they're now a player against Red Hat? Against Sun? "Endorsed" by Microsoft?
What exactly are the rules of the game at this point. 10-15 years ago, BSD and Linux were going head-to-head against commercial UNIX, such as Solaris, HP-UX and the like. Now, Sun is getting back to its roots and open sourcing Solaris (Bill Joy, original BSD author and creator of vi and csh was a founding partner of Sun, after all).
It seems that from old metrics, the "grown ups" are trying to sit at the "kid table."
Does that indicate that we now look at Microsoft as "grown up?" Are we talking merely from a business standpoint, not technological? I surely hope that is the case.
#2. What "indemnification" is Novell paying for, specifically?
Companies usually do NOT pay for things that they do not receive.
Do you remember the days when any company that stroke a deal with Microsoft, died a horrible and agonizing death? Well, look at this deal with Novell: it seems this is the first time a company pulled a fast one - on Microsoft! Novell saw a small opportunity to make a bit of money and offered to Microsoft something Novell must have known is worthless and impossible: the proprietarization of Linux. Microsoft was desperate enough that it wanted to believe this baloney and Novell was more than happy to oblige and feed them the BS, making a few bucks in the process, and attracting (extremely few) additional customers. Not too much profit, but every little helps, and you won't spit on it, especially if you give NOTHING in return, like Novell did to Microsoft.
Microsoft is getting sloppy and silly. These are indeed new times.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
1) Actually complete a sentence and
2) Link us to the real thing! Seeing a pumpkin isn't shocking.
Shameless, just shameless.
It doesn't matter how much you get paid, you've still entered into an agreement stating that you are paying Microsoft for the property that know is included in the product that you are selling.
Novell is Microsoft's Trojan Horse against Linux and thats ALL it is.
They are selling their "differentiation through interoperability" so that they appear as a Microsoft friendly Linux.
A complete lie, of course, because if there is one thing true about the GPL, is that they cannot do anything without giving it back. Particularily in samba.
Assholes.
NO SIG
A 31% growth rate is interesting, in that it is identical to what Fedora is seeing.
A year ago we had the release of Fedora 7 (Moonshine). In the first week, Fedora recorded 70,254 new, unique IPs. This year, we recently had the release of Fedora 9 (Sulpher). There were 91,847 new, unique IPs in the first week.
That's a growth of 31% for Fedora over one year as well.
Here are the stats pages, so you can see for yourself:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics/Legacy
They laid off this winter and the SEC filings show they are preparing more layoffs this year.
I abandoned RedHat when they first adopted the Redmond sales model with their WS, AS, and ES products. Nothing like telling the suits "Linux can save money" and then have the price of the OS make MS CALs look like a good deal.
Novell's offering has been very, very stable for the server environment, and at a very reasonable price. Plus, I like what Novell has done for OpenSuse (my preferred choice for desktop platform).
Good price, good stable environment, and even contributing back to the greater community. How could I not wish Novell continued success at this point?
(now just don't blow it, or that giant N will stand for "No More!")
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
Novell may attribute its earnings "outside of the Microsoft deal" in more ways than one. To many IT buyers, a Microsoft-tainted Linux supplier is the equivalent of napalm. I can certainly attest that we've done absolutely no business with Novell since they signed the deal, and will continue to avoid Novell as a vendor for as long as the Microsoft contract is in effect. Red Hat, on the other hand, has remained "pure" and has received the majority of our Linux business.
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So, was the rats' table full?
Novell attributes it to the MS-FUD deal, yeah of course, if you receive big large amounts of money from another company so you paid them for every purchase done to you, and you would also use this fact to advertise yourself as more legal and "more interoperable" than other distros, it probably will put you in a high spot. However, that doesn't make you less of a rat.
Smearing other Linux bussiness and using false advertising to climb and steal their market, it makes you a rat in a book.
Oh, sorry slashdot, I forgot "Novell contributes a lot to free software", so it is untouchable and I cannot make a bad commentary about them or what they are doing to exploit a deal that should have never been made. Sorry for criticizing Novell, uh oh.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
The more genuine competion the better. the SLES product and all the Novell bits on top to manage etc is good kit. Just as the Red Hat stuff is.
Good luck to them I say.