microsoft-novell

Novell ready for acquisitions?

Novell got a nice influx of cash when they made their deal with the devil (er, Microsoft) and BusinessWeek says that the company is now ready to start spending some of that cash on acquisitions.

The problem is that there aren't a whole lot of companies that are complementary in a meaningful way.

Raven Zachary at 451 Group suggests that Novell might be interested in one of the open source system management vendors like Hyperic and Zenoss. This makes sense but won't bring meaningful revenue--and both of those companies will be worth a lot more down the road (… Read more

Novell+Microsoft BFF Site

This month's Novell Linux Newsletter included a link to the Suse Team Blog which lists 40+ customers who "have decided to take advantage of the many benefits that the (MS/Novell) agreement brings to the table." And who knew that there was a whole site dedicated to the lovefest? (Hint: Not me.)

Unfortunately, the site, moreinterop.com appears to be down at the moment...probably running IIS :>

It's been a whole year since the ground-breaking Novell-Microsoft Collaboration Agreement was signed and announced. The one-stop shop for official info is here: http://www.moreinterop.com So … Read more

Is it Microsoft + Novell or Microsoft vs. Novell?

Mary Jo Foley notes some of the highlights of Microsoft's patent/interoperability deal with Novell, following Microsoft's own press release celebrating the deal. She says something, however, that I'm not sure I agree with:

Not surprisingly, Microsoft isn?t saying much about the part of its collaboration with Novell which has generated the most publicly outcry: The patent-protection component. The press release simply states that the 30 new customers are "join(ing) the ranks of all other Microsoft and Novell customers currently benefiting from the companies? collaboration to enable interoperability and IP peace of mind in mixed environments."

Actually, this is very surprising. I've started to notice a trend in all the announcements the two companies have made over the past year: Novell stresses interoperability while Microsoft beats its drum on patent protection.

Are the two companies talking about the same deal?… Read more

Ballmer shopping for open-source companies. Who's for sale?

Sometimes I read things like this and I'm relieved to find out that Steve Ballmer isn't completely deluded by proprietary ideology. Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit today, Ballmer made it clear that his vendetta against open source isn't as all-encompassing as he sometimes makes it out to be:

"We will do some buying of companies that are built around open-source products," Ballmer said during an onstage interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

A refusal to consider acquisitions of open-source developers "would take us out of the acquisition market quite dramatically," Ballmer said -- a tacit acknowledgment of how thoroughly open-source development has reshaped the software market. … Read more

Microsoft and Novell move in together or, how open source helps the also-ran

It's getting to the point that Microsoft and Novell just need to get married and stop shamming the "dating dance." I'm referring, of course, to the announcement today that the two companies are formalizing "a collaboration between Microsoft and Novell with the explicit purpose of bringing Silverlight to Linux and do this in a fully supported way.

What "fully supported" means is a question that Mary Jo Foley asks, and does a good job of answering. (She also points out that this collaboration/development has been much stronger than Novell and Microsoft have been telling us.)

But the most interesting take is Tim O'Reilly's:… Read more

Roll over for patent reform

Sorry. I saw this ad on a website today, and it made me laugh.

Roll over and beg for patent reform, Fido? Or roll over, as in a freeway accident? Roll over in one's grave at the thought? Or...well, let's leave it there. :-)

GPL 3--a bridge too far?

The Free Software Foundation last week released the third version of the GNU General Public License-- GPL 3 (also known as GPLv3).

This CNET News article explains the new features of GPL 3, which the FSF hopes will be adopted by most open-source developers in place of the GPL 2 license. The older GPL 2 will remain available, however.

FSF founder and president Richard M. Stallman has devoted his entire career to making free software--and to making software free. A strong opponent of copyrights, patents, digital-rights management, and all other legal or technical constructs that limit the freedom of software … Read more

Firewall programmer gets his way with OpenVZ

SWsoft programmers are working on an open-source virtualization project called OpenVZ that would make it possible to give a single installation of Linux the appearance of being several independent copies of the operating system. But Harald Welte, the lead programmer of the netfilter/iptables firewall software used in Linux, griped last week on his blog that the software didn't support the next-generation IPv6 Internet standard.

Welte's complaint didn't fall on deaf ears. "We have listened to the community and appreciate the feedback and will implement IPv6 support in OpenVZ in a month or two," SWsoft … Read more

Report: Microsoft plans virtualization manager

Microsoft is planning management software code-named Carmine to oversee virtualization tasks such as starting, stopping or moving virtual machines, Computer Reseller News reported Tuesday.

The software has only some of the features of rival VMware's VirtualCenter management software, according to an unnamed source in the story. Microsoft declined to comment.

Virtualization lets a single computer run several operating systems at once, a feature that permits greater efficiency when juggling multiple tasks. Microsoft, faced with pressure from EMC's VMware and more recently from the open-source Xen software being built into Red Hat and Novell Linux products, has begun more … Read more