Novell CEO Gives Behind the Scenes Account of Microsoft Deal 215
raffe writes "Here is a Q&A with Ron Hovsepian CEO of Novell. He describes 'a love-hate thing' between the two companies." From the article:
"This past May, I picked up the phone and called Kevin Turner, the COO at Microsoft. I knew Kevin when he was the CIO at Wal-Mart. I said, "Kevin, I'd like to have a conversation about what the customer needs. If you could put back on your old hat as a customer, if I came in and started talking to you about virtualization on Linux, and this Microsoft guy showed up and started talking to you about virtualization on Windows, what would you say to us?""
I'd say (Score:5, Interesting)
OK which one of you would cost me less in TCO.
Wow... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you didnt read it and pretended 2 marketers yakking, it was about as interesting.
Well, that and Virtualization is the next key word. Add that to Web 2.0 and Beowulf cluster.
Zzzzzz
There ya go, Ron Hovsepian admits to misconduct, (Score:3, Interesting)
Debian is the second largest GNU/Linux distro (Score:2, Interesting)
From the Netcraft's GNU/Linux distribution share [netcraft.com] stats:
RH - 34%,
Debian - 25%
Suse - 11 %
Admissions my arse (Score:5, Interesting)
Slimy toad. The question should to follow this should have been. "Are you personally aware of any violations of Microsoft patents having been identified as present in Linux code." None of this wishy washy "I haven't admitted to anything" nonsense. Bloody admit to it or state for the record that you aren't sitting on something that you'll "admit" later.
Re:Who will do that? (Score:5, Interesting)
People who want a stable subtrate operating system on which they can deploy their Windows services? Think about it. A stable underlying OS allows you to stop worrying about the actual servers and focus on the VMs. This means you can do things like hot VM fail-over, for higher availability. Seems like a big win to me.
Not to mention developers who might want a Linux box as their core OS while they do Windows development. Or those doing cross-platform work.
Re:Who will do that? (Score:3, Interesting)
He claimed to lose four deals with microsoft for being unduly influenced with IP problems starting about 18 months ago. I'm going to guess SCO fud and Microsoft helping maybe. Microsoft knows this will eventually be hammered out and the record set straight. No one will ever specify any particular part of anything in linux(or bsd) that is infringing because they know it either doesn't exist or will be replaces within a week. If they spread the fud, It will be DOJ anti trust all over and Microsoft knows it. Novel is big enough to go this route and cause a lot of problems for Microsoft's anti competition. Smaller Linux deployment won't have the ability Novel does to counter claims and seek resolve with the DOJ like Novel or IBM can.
It is in their best interest to deal with it now. the comment made from microsoft's vice monkey was either to influence a deal in the works or to promote Vista adoption and deter Linux replacements for aging Microsoft OSs.
You might want to check the article. the CEO said for the first time, about 18 months ago, he lost an account because of fud!. That means this 95% just got a little larger because if lies! And novels market share hasn't been dropping at any stagering rate. You not going to get nose bleeds from the ride. But lucky because enough fud was spread about IP belonging to Microsoft or SCO or whoever else means exactly what it implies. Microsoft got lucky on a few deals because of fud being spread around!
What a Total Idiot (Score:5, Interesting)
So you called Microsoft out of desperation because you had no idea how to get Novell out of the cesspit it has found itself in? Why don't you just say that? No one calls the company who is taking business off you hand over fist and is the source of all your woes unless you're effectively conceding defeat. There's no deal you can do with them. They're just going to laugh at you and have you on.
Yet again, we get this virtualisation nonsense which seems to be Novell's answer to everything these days. In what possible way is virtualisation a stumbling block to anything?! Somebody, tell me. We've been able to virtualise Windows quite happily under VMware for years without any trouble - no thanks to Microsoft. Xen won't yet virtualise Windows, but it can, and when the right hardware support is in place it will do without any help from Microsoft.
Again - what on Earth is the problem apart from your own business and your own strategy?!
Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. You wait until Xen works with the hardware it needs to make virtualising Windows possible, or in the meantime, you grab a copy of VMware and install Windows or Linux on it? You could even partner with VMware. Fancy that. *Puts phone down*
That's not the way Microsoft views it.
From Microsoft's perspective, absolutely nothing, because they don't care about interoperability. They must be doing something right, because its worked for them. All the useful Java and .Net interoperability software is already being sold successfully via smaller software companies, and most are doing quite well out of it. It's a pity that Novell isn't a part of this, isn't making any money out of this and can't put Mono to some actual good use.
To do with what exactly? Cluestick: people are already doing it.
So the deal was about interoperability, what there is to actually talk about, and Microsoft wanted to talk to you about patents and IP and you agreed, which serves their own ends? Brilliant. What a bunch of clueless idiots. I'm sure you're now part of another long running office joke in Redmond.
And you thought that gave you the upper hand, and you never once asked why Microsoft were willing to go along with something that they just didn't need to do?
Don't Believe it for a Minute (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if he did have some initial thoughts regarding the matter in that way clearly Microsoft did not, even from the beginning.
Several factors will hurt this deal. It will potentially taint the developers and their contribution back into the linux development cycle. It will give Microsoft some control on the development of Linux.
Microsoft knows they can't compete so they wanted to control the development and then threaten anyone that didn't do it their way. That is so utterly clear I can't understand how this guy expects me (or anyone) to believe his rendition.
Honestly he may have had some intent as he described it but clearly Microsoft never did. This was at attempt to get Microsoft into a position that if you pulled them out of the works the whole thing would fall.
If Microsoft can compete then let them. If they can't compete then let the company die. But do NOT threaten the Linux community and attempt to manipulate it with slight of hand.
Re:What I still don't understand is ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hovespian gets to the meat of it in the first page: either J2EE stacks or .Net stacks. Novell has bedded down with Microsoft because the future looked rather bleak for them with Red Hat owning the Free Java space and acquiring JBoss and Novell wasting a lot of money and time on their .NET implementation. As a result Novell gets a couple of hundred million and in return Microsoft gets ...
Microsoft wins, Novell execs get a bigger pot of money to pay themselves out of, so they win. Novell gets some value out of what is otherwise a dead loss (Mono) and can make a stronger case for their GNU/Linux/.NET mashup. Every other business dependent on GNU/Linux loses because Novell's engineers are wasting their time doing Microsoft's engineering development for them instead of improving Free software.
Re:Making Up For PR Loss (Score:1, Interesting)
The fact is that nearly every major COMPANY is behind this deal and looks to it to actually allow them to properly position Linux onto thousands of systems where as before they were hamstrung by possible lawsuits (which the CEO and CFO would be paranoid about) and by lack of true interoperability.
You can bitch and whine about MS all you want but the FACT is they ARE the marketplace. Their software and OS have set the standards that ALL companies must be compatible with. And I'm not talking about the small business owner who is installing Linux for his website, I'm talking about GM, Motorola, United Airlines, etc.
IBM, HP, Dell, and other major IT companies are behind this move 100%. Their CIO/CTO have all spoken and applaud the move so they can now get Linux and MS to work together in their infrastructure.
And for all you "up yours Novell I'm not going with SUSE"...you are a tiny, itty, bitty drop in the financial bucket compared to the corporations and their IT staff who will go into this with glee.
I know in my case I'm damn happy about the move. The one thing that has been holding me back from going with Linux on the desktop and on certain servers was the lack of TRUE compatibility on several levels. We are a Novell house, we have MS servers, Red Hat, and SUSE as well. Yes, with LOTS of time and work they can work well together...but companies see time = money and so don't want their IT staff doing it when the companies (MS and Novell) can do it for them.
Frankly the ONLY REAL FUD is coming from some of the Linux fanboys. Ballmer's stupid comments pale in comparison. If the fanbase keeps this up it's going to be the very thing that destroys Linux from ever being anything more than another OS/2 on the OS train.
Re:www.vmware.com (Score:5, Interesting)
I can keep a linux system up and running for years with a handful of services, and I'm horrid at unix. For instance, I know "dd", ":q", ":wq", "i", "a" from VI, that's IT.
On the other hand, I'm pretty much a windows expert. I can do pretty much anything with a windows machine EXCEPT keep it running for more than a month. I'm not talking windows expert as in the guy in your family that helps with PCs, I'm speaking as the guy who helps the IT department when they get stuck.
How about hackability? I don't think I've ever seen a rooted Linux machine (but as I said, I don't get a ton of exposure to Linux workstations, maybe I don't know?)--yet I find it rare when dealing with a PC over 6 months old to not have a rootkit or some such garbage installed. I keep a Linux machine at home and won't do financial transactions on any of my 4 windows PCs or this work pc I'm on now.
I admit I'm talking different uses. PCs I've used have generally had apps installed and uninstalled over time, and are in a pretty flakey condition within a year. The Linux pc's I've set up are generally fire-and-forget, but as I said, I do run one linux laptop where I load bunches of apps, delete bunches of apps, etc and it's still crashless (well, apps lock up sometimes and I'm sometimes not good enough to shut them down without rebooting the laptop, but it could be done if I was better with Linux.)
Also: a "Good" windows admin will schedule reboots daily or weekly. I've never heard of a "Good" linux admin doing that. Doesn't that alone say a lot about general stability?
Did you have some different definition of stability than uptime (no crashes, no reboots) and a lack of degradation over time?
One has to wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Rebooting nonsense (Score:2, Interesting)
Last time I rebooted my FC4 box was about five months ago after a kernel upgrade.