"...Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux."

--Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO

SCO

WE SHALL start with SCO, just as we so often do. In an interview with Pamela Jones, she explains why the bogus & frivolous lawsuit is not over until it's practically over.

Last week, the final judgment was issued in the SCO v. Novell lawsuit. No big surprise, Novell took the day, with SCO ordered to fork over around 3.5 million dollars. This lead many to declare SCO dead, that truth and justice had won the day, and go dancing around the virtual streets of the Internet. Alas, the law is rarely that simple, and there's still a ton of legal proceedings alive and well that bear SCO's name. Even SCO v. Novell isn't over, since later in the week SCO filed notice of intent to appeal. With all that in mind, we thought it might be a good time to check in with the chronicler of all things SCO, Pamela Jones of Groklaw, and see just where things stand.

Sun and MySQL kick SCO in the rear by pulling the support plug on SCO OpenServer.

At the time Marten Mickos defended the deal by claiming that he hoped working with MySQL would educate SCO’s executives:

Virtualisation

Novell is prodding bloggers for some publicity.

Richard Whitehead, one of the interesting people from Novell I speak with on an irregular basis, contacted me to tell me about an update to the PlateSpin portfolio and how Novell the PlateSpin product family and the former ZenWorks Orchestrator have been rebranded.

This was followed by a press release about PlateSpin.

Novell today announced significant enhancements to its PlateSpin Workload Management solution. Leveraging Novell's strengths in interoperability, the new PlateSpin Recon, PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Orchestrate enable customers to profile, migrate, protect and manage server workloads between physical and virtual infrastructures in heterogeneous IT environments. Through these new enhancements, PlateSpin Workload Management is the only solution on the market today to support 32- and 64-bit Windows and Linux servers, as well as all leading hypervisors including Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V and Virtual Server, VMware ESX and ESXi and Xen integrated in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

Here is another new press release.

Novell today announced significant enhancements to its PlateSpin(R) Workload Management solution. Leveraging Novell's strengths in interoperability, the new PlateSpin Recon(TM), PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Orchestrate(TM) enable customers to profile, migrate, protect and manage server workloads between physical and virtual infrastructures in heterogeneous IT environments. Through these new enhancements, PlateSpin Workload Management is the only solution on the market today to support 32- and 64-bit Windows* and Linux* servers, as well as all leading hypervisors including Citrix* XenServer*, Microsoft* Hyper-V and Virtual Server, VMware* ESX and ESXi and Xen* integrated in SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server.

The PR entailed some more coverage.

From eWeek: Novell Puts Platespin Data Center Management Front and Center

Novell on Dec. 3 will introduce four new data workload management software packages emanating from its $205 million acquisition of Platespin eight months ago.

Novell claims to be the first and only vendor to provide complete data center management of the entire workload lifecycle, across multiple operating systems, multiple hypervisors, physical and virtual environments.

From TechTarget.com: PlateSpin strives for virtualization management breadth

PlateSpin Ltd., the Waltham, Mass.-based firm known for its physical-to-virtual (P2V) PowerConvert software, has upgraded and expanded on its PlateSpin workload management products.

New or enhanced elements of the suite include PlateSpin Recon, PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Orchestrate (formerly Zenworks Orchestrator). Together, the tools enable users to profile, migrate, protect and manage server workloads between physical and virtual systems in mixed data center environments.

From CBR: Novell tackles physical, virtual management

Novell announced enhancements to the data centre management tools it garnered through its $205m acquisition of PlateSpin in February of this year.

The new PlateSpin Recon, PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Orchestrate enable customers to profile, migrate, protect and manage server workloads between physical and virtual infrastructures in heterogeneous IT environments, Novell said.

From IDG: Novell’s new Spin on virtual workflow management

Novell Inc. announced Wednesday what its Canadian chief technology officer called “the next generation” of its PlateSpin virtualization management software. And while one analyst said it’s too early to tell if the offering will be head-and-shoulders above the class, he said the combination of technologies purchased and developed in-house by Novell has promise.

Novell is also mentioned in the following new article about energy consumption/efficiency, which is traditionally associated with virtualisation.

The San Francisco-based NGO filed a successful shareholder resolution with Novell to get the company to report climate data to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). The network server software maker immediately agreed. AYS has also filed a proposal with Apple because it feels the CDP report it did file should have included more information.

AYS also plans to open a dialogue with other tech companies, such as Broadcom, Jabil Circuit, Microchip Technology, Micron Technology and SanDisk, to try to convince them to follow Novell's lead. If unsuccessful, AYS will file similar resolutions.

Mail

Microsoft and Novell will hook up a little better owing to the work of Omni.

Omni, in association with its Scandinavian Distributor, Liga ApS, today announced two Microsoft€® SharePoint€® integration options for Novell€® GroupWise€® customers who want to leverage their existing Novell GroupWise technology investments. Omni's Riva Integration Server provides transparent, server-side synchronization of GroupWise and SharePoint appointments, tasks, address books and issues -- without any modifications required to SharePoint or the GroupWise clients. Option two is to use Riva to quickly and easily add GroupWise WebAccess™ Web Parts directly to the SharePoint Portal user interface.

More about this here:

Canada-based Omni has partnered with its Scandinavian distributor Liga ApS to offer two Microsoft SharePoint integration options for Novell GroupWise customers who want to leverage their existing Novell GroupWise investments. Omni says its Riva Integration Server “provides transparent...

Blackberry's connectivity with GroupWise continues to make some articles appear, such as:

1. Blackberry Storm Not A Resounding Success

It comes preloaded with a suite of products to edit Microsoft Word documents, something the iPhone doesn’t have. It also is connected to Blackberry’s enterprise server for products such as Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise.

2. BlackBerry wins Fraunhofer security approval

The reference configuration consisted of the BES for Microsoft Exchange v4.1.6, used in conjunction with a BlackBerry Pearl 8110 smartphone. Other versions of the BES connect to Lotus Domino/Notes or Novell GroupWise servers.

Security

Nothing but advisories this time around (shared across distributions)

• SUSE Security Announcement - MozillaFirefox, MozillaThunderbird, seamonkey



• SUSE Security Announcement - Linux kernel (SUSE-SA:2008:057)



• SUSE Security Announcement - Kernel (SUSE-SA:2008:056)

People & Partners

There is very little to see here, such as the movement of a man who used to help Novell.

With over 20 years experience helping industry leaders such as Novell, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Dell, Deloitte Consulting, and Yahoo! develop eLearning, training and certification solutions, Lohner is poised to lead Relevate Logic in developing custom Social Learning solutions for the enterprise.

EXCOM brags about a Novell award that it received recently.

Leading IT technical training provider EXCOM Education has again achieved another ICT industry milestone and recognition, after being awarded the 2008 Novell Training Partner of the Year (Asia-Pacific), in addition to being recognised as a Platinum Training Partner for Asia-Pacific in 2009.

Novell awarded EXCOM Education the highest recognition in the Asia-Pacific region for the second consecutive year, on the delivery of quality education, exceeding expectations of courses delivered throughout the region and excellence in customer service.

That's about all for now. ⬆