The overall market for enterprise spending may be weak, but Novell and Microsoft insist they are signing plenty of joint customers.
Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian (left) shakes hands with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer after signing a 2006 accord.
(Credit: Microsoft)In a statement, the software makers say they have signed more than 100 joint customers in the past six months. That's twice the rate at which they had been signing folks as part of an 2006 accord, the two companies said. In total, the two companies say they have sold $200 million worth of Novell support and maintenance certificates to more than 300 customers.
Microsoft says the economy is helping this piece of its business. "In today's economic environment, when customers are looking to derive the greatest value from their IT investments, we are seeing an increased rate of demand for the interoperability solutions and IP peace of mind benefits provided by our collaboration," Microsoft general manager of strategic partnerships Ted MacLean said in a statement.
Among the better known North American names signed since November are Honeywell Aerospace, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The companies also named several other U.S. firms as well as a number of companies in Asia and Europe.
The Microsoft-Novell deal is often held up by Microsoft as an example of how open source and proprietary software makers can work together. Striking that deal, though, was not easy, as noted in a book earlier this year co-authored by Microsoft's Marshall Phelps.
The arrangement has also led to technical cooperation between the two, including a plug-in for Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager software which lets IT workers monitor their Linux and Windows system environments all within Microsoft's management software. That module is due out later this month, the companies said.
In a statement, 451 Group analyst Jay Lyman said that "the partnership has substantially benefited Microsoft's Linux integration story and has driven Linux revenue for Novell.
"The development and work by the two companies to improve Linux and Windows interoperability addresses the reality of mixed enterprise environments for customers, who were largely the impetus for this collaboration and are now benefiting from the resulting technology and support," Lyman said.
Microsoft on Monday announced a series of moves that it says back up its February pledge to make it easy for others' software to interoperate with its own products.
The news is mostly incremental. Microsoft is making more documentation available on how its older binary Office formats work as well as a final version of the protocols used in Office 2007. What caught my eye, though, were two new projects.
The first involves Microsoft working with China's Beihang University to develop translators to allow Excel and PowerPoint to open and save files in China's UOF format. In the second, Microsoft is working to design a new translator that converts its Office 2007 documents into HTML to allow software makers to more easily create browser-based applications that can read Office 2007's Open XML Office format.
"Customers want the interoperability at the document level," Craig Shank, general manager of interoperability at Microsoft. "They would like to be able to use documents in different ways."
LAS VEGAS--Mozilla Vice President Mike Schroepfer said Microsoft's decision to support a more standards-compliant mode by default should keep Web developers from having to waste so much time.
With the current set-up, he said that developers have a fairly easy time getting a site that renders properly in Opera, Safari, and Firefox, but often spend a lot of energy trying to get that same site to also render correctly in Internet Explorer.
"Web developers burn through a tremendous amount of time getting their sites to work with IE because of IE's special quirks," said Schroepfer, who I caught up with here at Mix '08.
He said that Microsoft's move toward greater embrace of standards with Internet Explorer 8 is a good thing.
"There are some encouraging things there and I hope to see more," he said.
In particular, it would be helpful if Microsoft gave a roadmap for which standards it planned to support down the road, that way Web developers could decide earlier to invest time. He said he would really like to see Microsoft support a new graphics standard known as scalable vector graphics.
"That would be a great win for the Web," he said.
Meanwhile, Schroepfer also talked up the benefits of Firefox 3, which is just hitting its fourth beta and is edging closer to a final release. In particular, he pointed to the browser's "Awesome bar" that remembers not only specific Web addresses that have been visited but also other information from the page. For example typing in "televisions" might bring up a recent TV search on Amazon, even though television wasn't in the address.
"Once you use it you actually can't use any other browser," he said. Also on tap are improved speed and antimalware features, he said.
Updated at 2:30 p.m. PST.
LAS VEGAS--Although anyone can now download the Internet Explorer 8 browser, Microsoft is gearing this release for Web developers. However, a second beta, slated to arrive this summer, is aimed at a wider audience, Microsoft's top browser executive told CNET News.com.
"It's public," general manager Dean Hachamovitch said of the Beta 1 released Wednesday. "It's out on Microsoft.com somewhere. Anyone can download it."
Although features like Web Slices may appeal to consumers, Hachamovitch said that "the (current) beta really is for developers."
Microsoft isn't saying when the final version of the browser will be released. Hachamovitch also declined to say whether it will be released at the same time as Windows 7, the next version of Microsoft's operating system. He did note that Microsoft released IE 7 for XP ahead of Windows Vista, so it is technically possible to do so.
As was the case with the IE 7 betas, those installing the test version of IE 8 will have to replace their current browser.
The IE 8 beta will run on both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows Vista SP1 as well as Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 and 2008.
In designing the browser, Hachamovitch said, Microsoft is trying to find ways to both be more compatible and add features. On that latter front, he pointed to a consumer feature known as activities, which allows users to select a block of text and have it, say, looked up on Dictionary.com or mapped with Microsoft or Google's services.
"Right now, the Web for a lot of people is 'some assembly required,'" he said. "This integrates the services you use with the sites you visit."
LAS VEGAS--Microsoft offered its first public demonstration of Internet Explorer 8 on Wednesday, a prospect that had general manager Dean Hachamovitch struggling to figure out what to cover.
"I'm so excited that I had to figure out how to focus," he told the crowd. The marketing folks naturally suggested he point to three major advances, but Hatchamovitch disagreed.
"These are developers," he said he told the marketers. "They can count higher than three."
So, instead he said he would talk about eight features: CSS 2.1 support, CSS Certification, performance, start of HTML 5 support, new developer tools, activities, Web slices and one he hasn't named yet.
Microsoft also said that the first beta of the browser, intended for developers, will be available after today's keynote.
One of the new features, WebSlices, allow users to break a Web site into parts and only get updates from the part they want.
In IE 8 users can subscribe to parts of Web page," Hachamovitch said. He showed an example in IE 8 where users can use Web slices to subscribe to a single eBay auction.
Apple has its own Web-clipping subscription method that is part of Mac OS X.
Separately, Microsoft said it was making available a beta version of Silverlight 2, which will move the technology further beyond delivering video and into creating rich Internet applications.
Among the features of Silverlight 2 is what Microsoft calls adaptive streaming: the ability of the client PC to decide how large a streaming file it can handle at any given moment based on its CPU and network resources.
"If the network gets congested it can drop down to a lower bit rate," said Scott Guthrie a vice president in Microsoft's developer division.
With IE8, Hachamovitch discussed Microsoft's commitment to compatibility. He relayed a story of what his kids used to say whenever they had Internet problems.
"They'd ask 'Daddy, did you break the web?'" Hachamovitch said. "Most of the time I could honestly say 'No.'"
In a broader sense though, Hachamovitch said, that others might disagree that Microsoft, had in fact broken the Web. "Web developers might answer the question differently," he said.
Hachamovitch then went on to talk about Microsoft's commitment to interoperability and steps that it has taken. Microsoft announced earlier this week that IE 8 would use its most standards compliant mode by default. The company said it believed that move would assuage developer concerns as well as regulatory and competitive issues.
However, a top Opera executive told CNET News.com yesterday that Microsoft's move addresses only one of several concerns that the browser maker had raised with the European Commission.
Aiming to demonstrate that its commitment to interoperability goes beyond fancy statements, Microsoft said Monday that it is shifting its plans for the next version of Internet Explorer to make the program more friendly to Web standards.
The software maker said that a planned standards compatibility mode will now be the default rendering engine when IE 8 makes its debut. Microsoft has already said that the new browser is capable of passing the Acid2 rendering test.
"We think that acting in accordance with principles is important, and IE 8's default is a demonstration of the interoperability principles in action," IE general manager Dean Hachamovitch said in a blog posting.
With IE 8, Microsoft plans to have three rendering modes: the new standards-compliant mode, the IE7 rendering engine, as well as an option for displaying older Web sites. Because of the default shift, Web sites that want IE 8 to use its IE7 engine will have to add a tag to their site's code.
Microsoft noted that there are some legal reasons for changing course. "While we do not believe there are currently any legal requirements that would dictate which rendering mode must be chosen as the default for a given browser, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement.
At the end of last year, Opera complained to the European Commission about Microsoft's browser practices, and last week Microsoft was handed a record fine for its past noncompliance with EU dictates.
Microsoft hasn't said when the final version will be out, but a beta version of the browser is due out in the first half of the year. There also will likely be more browser news later this week, when Hachamovitch gives a keynote speech at the Mix '08 conference in Las Vegas.
Microsoft's top executives are set to announce a broad interoperability strategy that includes an agreement not to sue open-source developers for products that connect to Microsoft software, a source familiar with the company's plans told CNET News.com.
The software maker had already taken baby steps in this direction, signing individual pacts with companies like Novell and Turbolinux, as well as agreeing not to sue individual developers.
The company has scheduled a conference call at 8:30 a.m. PST on Thursday to discuss the news. Among the executives on the call are CEO Steve Ballmer, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, server and tools head Bob Muglia, and General Counsel Brad Smith.
Ray Ozzie (left) and Steve Ballmer.
(Credit: Microsoft)Update: Microsoft issued its press release with more details.
Microsoft on Thursday announced changes in its business practices to work better with software from other providers, including open-source communities.
It laid out four principles aimed at making its high-volume enterprise software support standards and better handling data from non-Microsoft software.
Specifically, Microsoft said it will publish the documentation for the application programming interfaces and communications protocols in its "high-volume products." Developers do not need to buy a license or pay a royalty to access the information.
As a first step, Microsoft will publish protocols for communicating with Windows Server, which had previously only been available under a trade secret license. Protocols for interoperability with Office 2007 will be published in the coming months, the company said.
Microsoft said the pledge will ultimately extend to Windows Vista, the .NET Framework, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Microsoft said that it will not sue open-source developers who create non-commercial software based on Microsoft's protocols.
The company also said that it will provide new application programming interfaces to developers so that Office 2007 can better work with document formats. The company does not natively support the alternative Open Document Format, or ODF, standard in Office 2007.
Although it does not mention ODF specifically in its release, Microsoft also launched a Document Interoperability Initiative to "address data exchange between widely deployed formats."
Microsoft said the Open Source Interoperability Initiative will foster a better working relationship with open-source projects, and will provide technical assistance, such as interoperability testing.
Through a previously created Interoperability Executive Customer (IEC) Council, Microsoft will seek to create a better "(dialogue) and outreach" with partners, customers, and developers on the subject of interoperability.
In a statement, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said these steps are part of the company's efforts to comply with antitrust obligations laid out by the European Court of First Instance (CFI).
"As we said immediately after the CFI decision last September, Microsoft is committed to taking all necessary steps to ensure we are in full compliance with European law," Smith said.
CNET News.com's Martin LaMonica contributed to this report.
- prev
- 1
- next
