Pamela Jones of Groklaw rightly takes umbrage that Sun Microsystems apparently stood by while The SCO Group attempted to foul the pedigree of Linux, but how much righteous indignation is warranted is debatable. Jones writes:
And what an icky role Sun played, to judge from (Novell's Greg) Jones' description of the agreement. Look at all the damage that resulted from Sun's silence, the litigation that never had to happen....And as far as Linux is concerned, why didn't Sun speak out to help?
It had in the power of its hand the ability to protect Linux users. Silence. For years and years and years. While folks got sued, and the FUD campaign raged on.
Yes, but this overlooks one convenient point: Sun was competing with Linux. Hard. Not only did it not have a legal obligation to speak out, it may well have had a legal obligation to not speak out.
Every contract that I've negotiated in the last few years has, at the customer's or partner's insistence, a section in it that prohibits disclosure of the contract. I would guess that similar wording is to be found in the partnership agreement between Sun and SCO.
Even if Sun had an obligation, legal or otherwise, to disclose Linux's clean bill of health, why would it? We can argue that it may have had a moral obligation, but it also has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, which arguably wouldn't have been well-served by propping up a competitor, however unfairly maligned.
I'm not suggesting that I personally could have stood by and watched, had I worked for Sun, but I also think it's important not to burden Sun's efforts to remedy some errors of its past with all the good it's doing now. I believe in that pesky repentance thing. :-)
Yes, Novell has a ways to go to catch up with Red Hat, but with yet another strong quarter it's becoming increasingly clear that the enterprise Linux market is a two-horse race again. Importantly, Novell is competing much more strongly without backup from Microsoft.
Novell saw its Linux business top $29 million in its second fiscal quarter of 2008 ($30 million in total Open Platform Solutions revenue), up 31 percent over the same period a year ago, with other business units also seeing healthy growth. Only its Workgroup business unit continues to founder, down 1 percent in the period that ended April 30.
More importantly (to me), I asked Justin Steinman, Novell's director of Marketing for Linux and Open Platforms, how much of this is attributable to Novell's partnership with Microsoft. It turns out that Novell is starting to really grow its Linux business on its own, though it still looks to Microsoft as a strong partner to drive interoperability:
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.
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I will admit, I am laughing as I type this. The news that Microsoft and Novell are taking their interoperability roadshow to China is hilarious on a number of different levels.
How much do you think that China cares about U.S. patents? It has been pirating Microsoft's Windows for years (though at least, in theory, new PCs don't ship with pirated Windows)--and now suddenly it's concerned about making sure it has patent protection for Linux? My mirth runneth over.
"We are very pleased with the original approach by Microsoft and Novell to address our concerns about deploying and managing a complex high-performance computing infrastructure across two platforms. It is essential for our future competitiveness and success," Nie Hua, vice president of Chinese company Dawning Information Industry, said in Microsoft and Novell's Sunday night press release. "We fully understand the concerns surrounding intellectual property rights and feel reassured that these issues have been addressed by our vendors."
I bet! I suspect Nie Hua was crying himself to sleep at night before Microsoft and Novell approached him with this. You can just imagine his fretting: "How will I deal with the uncertainty of Linux's intellectual property position unless Microsoft, which has attempted to introduce the uncertainty, blesses my Linux distribution?" Give me a break.
Still, I give Novell credit here. Why?
... Read moreOne year ago, Linux kernel development was almost predominately Red Hat's game. Today, Red Hat's lead has dipped considerably, according to a report just released by the Linux Foundation.
Red Hat continues to contribute/sponsor 11.2 percent of the Linux kernel's development, down from 14.4 percent in 2007, while Novell has jumped from an anemic 3.6 percent in 2007 to a robust 8.9 percent in 2008.
(Credit:
Linux Foundation)
Perhaps not surprisingly, Novell's share of the Linux market has grown considerably in that same time, with Novell reporting a 200 percent increase in its Linux business over the past year.
So, while Novell crows about its rise in revenue market share in the Linux market, it's the company's development market share that I view as the true leading indicator of its business. Linux sales are up 200 percent, while Linux development is up 250 percent. See a correlation?
In open source, it's all about "owning" the source of code, not necessarily the source code.
Importantly, it's not just Novell and Red Hat who contribute. As detailed statistics demonstrate, the Linux kernel is perhaps the world's largest, most distributed development effort, reflecting its increasing importance to an ever-widening array of disparate parties:
... Read moreNovell's Brainshare is in full swing, and the company announced two significant deals. The first is that Hewlett-Packard will be preloading Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop on select laptops and desktops. It's a big coup for Novell after Ubuntu scored with Dell. It's also a big coup for customers who won't have to go through the bother of maintaining Linux on incompatible hardware, as I recently did with Ubuntu on Lenovo's X61 laptop.
Novell also scored with Sesame Street Workshop. This isn't a huge revenue generator but it's a fun deal. Sesame Street Workshop is a big believer in open source and has been deploying it a range of different contexts. Good to see them selecting Novell's Suse Linux...for the right reasons.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a Microsoft appeal to an antitrust case that dates back to Novell's desktop PC software business in the mid-1990s.
The move leaves standing a lower court ruling that says Novell can sue Microsoft under federal antitrust laws. Novell argued that Microsoft used its monopoly power to sink Novell's QuattroPro spreadsheet and WordPerfect word processor.
The court had no comment and Chief Justice John Roberts abstained because he is a Microsoft shareholder, according to the Associated Press.
"Microsoft specifically targeted WordPerfect and Novell's other office productivity applications because they threatened Microsoft's Windows monopoly," according to the Novell court filing quoted by the Bloomberg news service.
In its case, Novell also said that Microsoft withheld technical information to make WordPerfect work with Windows 95.
In its appeal, Microsoft argued that federal antitrust laws don't apply to the case because Novell does not compete in operating systems.
In the late 1990s, Microsoft settled federal and state antitrust suits against it, which includes ongoing oversight over the company's actions.
The Novell case is the largest of remaining private suits against the company.
Microsoft contended in its appeal that Novell can't invoke the U.S. antitrust laws because it didn't compete against Windows in the operating system market.
Update 12:23 pm Pacific: Microsoft released a statement on Monday regarding the case, explaining its rationale to appeal the lower court's ruling.
"We realize the Supreme Court reviews a small percentage of cases each year, but we filed our petition because it offered an opportunity to address the question of who may assert antitrust claims. We look forward to addressing this and other substantive matters in the case before the trial court. We believe the facts will show that Novell's claims, which are 12 to 14 years old, are without merit."
Martin Buckley
(Credit: Novell)Wow. Martin Buckley, longtime product manager and global evangelist for Novell's Systems and Resource Management products (e.g., Zenworks), has quit Novell.
He hasn't given any real details as to why but says he's leaving over "certain principles."
Word on the street is that Buckley was set to do a lot of stuff at Novell's upcoming Brainshare user and partner conference. His departure may be a harbinger of really big changes in Novell's systems and resource management business unit.
Positive changes? Well, apparently not, from Martin's perspective. You don't quit a company after eight and a half years over "certain principles," unless things are really bad.
I never knew Buckley during my time at Novell, but he was and is well-respected. His departure doesn't inspire confidence.
UPDATE: Heard from a credible source that Martin is on his way to Microsoft. I guess the "certain principles" weren't things like "open source purity" and such. Maybe Martin wasn't happy that Novell hasn't fully sold itself to Microsoft. :-)
At this week's VMworld Europe in Cannes, France, Novell made an announcement that was more startling to the server virtualization bourgeoisie than a tepid Merlot.
Novell, the company most often associated with network operating systems and red boxes, on Monday announced its plan to acquire PlateSpin, a server virtualization orchestration start-up, for $205 million in cash.
Why would Novell make this acquisition?
1. Server virtualization was passing the company by. In spite of all of the intellectual capital Novell applied to the open-source Xen server virtualization project, the company gained little business value in return. PlateSpin enables Novell to join the virtualization party by entering through the management and operations door.
2. Management has become a server virtualization Achilles' heel. Yes, everyone loves server virtualization, but managing multiple dynamic workloads across heterogeneous platforms is a bear. ESG has seen instances where management headaches have actually derailed server virtualization deployments at large enterprises. Novell just bought into a market with high user demand and limited supply.
3. PlateSpin complements existing Novell strengths. Novell already has very strong systems management tools in its ZenWorks suite. Now PlateSpin extends these capabilities to server virtualization and the dynamic data center. Novell can pull PlateSpin into its ZenWorks base, while PlateSpin may help Novell sell more ZenWorks.
Kudos to Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian and Co. on this deal. PlateSpin really could provide a significant boost to Novell if it can extend its partnership with Microsoft, cozy up to VMware, and execute at the field level. A tall order for sure, but PlateSpin gives Novell revenue and market expansion opportunities that it did not have a week ago.
Novell said Monday it plans to acquire PlateSpin for $205 million in cash, a move that could bolster Novell's software for helping customers manage their computing operations.
PlateSpin's software is used to encapsulate software and data running on a physical or virtual server, an infrastructure designed to make it easier to reconfigure hardware and software on the fly in response to equipment failures or changing work needs. The software also can handle the automated installation process called provisioning.
Novell, based in Waltham, Mass., is trying to rebuild its financial health by focusing on two main software areas, Linux and management software. The PlateSpin acquisition, which fits into the latter category, is expected to close in the second quarter of Novell's fiscal 2008, which concludes at the end of April.
Microsoft's pledge to truly interoperate with the rest of the planet, including open-source developers (both commercial and community), leaves two clear victors in the Linux camp: Red Hat and Ubuntu. While Novell capitulated to Microsoft's early demands for a patent stooge, Red Hat and Ubuntu stood firm.
Today, they, like the rest of the industry, got their due: a truly open pledge for open APIs, open protocols, and data portability from Microsoft, as well as what appears to be fair and reasonable terms for patent grants/licenses.
Where does this leave Novell?
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