Novell agreed not to compete with Microsoft under the deal?

Then shhhh, don’t tell Microsoft about the GroupWise competitive upgrade promotion running for the rest of the year.

If you’re anti-FUD, it would help if you practiced what you preach.

But back to now, the economy is fucked – everyone will lay people off. The weak will lay more off. Novell are not in the strong position they once were. But they haven’t been for ages either.

The linux strategy was confusing for their long-time customers, who by definition were pretty conservative technology users – even if by their measure they were using a good product. Then just when they were getting into the linuxy swing of things they switched tack again, realising they weren’t making enough money for their shareholders, and rather than treating it as a long term investment, or because they couldn’t afford it, went for short term gains. The MS deal was one of those.

That must have had a retardant effect on their building linux momentum, it just had to have. Europe, where suse is big, has a particularly healthy distrust of anything MS (and us companies in general, i..e novell) , so you can’t say that the deal didn’t have a material affect on some potential customers. Whether they gained additional revenue through other customers who ill-considered the secret deal a value-added bonus is up for debate (simply as it is secret, how can they know?), and I would suggest it wouldn’t be as much as they’d have had anyway. Even if in short-term monetary terms they’re in front.

The main differentiator they have is ‘interoperability’. But who seriously buys that? – the single most important application for windows interoperability is Samba, and that had nothing whatsoever to do with their deal. And even mid-level managers can work that out. And the promise not to sue customers is worthless and really quite offensive anywhere where software patents are illegal – and that’s a lot of places.

It’s a real pity that their employees will suffer, and indeed resources allocated to the free software world may suffer, whatever the root cause of the problem. The economy is definitely to blame, but poor management never helps either (how are redhat doing eh?).

Regarding control, Novell hands over control to Microsoft in exchange for cash injections like that $100m boost from 2008.

Come again? Hands control over to what?

To be fair to Novell, that’s largely not their fault. Microsoft leveraged their position as the dominant OS vendor to give their own product teams preferential access to the necessary APIs. As a result, Microsoft’s products always looked better since they were better integrated to the operating system. I have heard numerous stories over the years of Novell’s battles to get API information, which was either not forthcoming or only made available to them at a late date. With this in mind, it’s especially ironic that Novell is cooperating to such a large extent with the company that they should still consider as their biggest competitor, Microsoft.

I’m not entirely sure to what extent that damaged Novell’s ability to compete. It certainly didn’t help. But, Novell is responsible for it’s own products. From a technical perspective, their offerings in the server, groupware, management, and identity manage spaces can compete with anything Microsoft has on many levels. So I don’t completely buy the API issue. Ultimately, I think Novell’s lack of visibility in the market is a large issue. In addition to that, Novell’s own lack of proper APIs for GroupWise which limits third party integration is a large problem. Groupware integration is attractive to companies. Exchange apparently excels(no pun) in third party integrations. Exhange means windows servers and active directory. Exchange and Windows and Active Directory means some manager or director will ask, “why are we paying for Microsoft and Novell licensing, can’t we cut something?”. You can see where I’m going.

Again, the API issue doesn’t help, but I don’t think it’s as bad as other factors.

Not to mention the permanent damage you’ve managed to bring on to your own reputation. Incidentally have fun trying to get a job when you graduate – people tend to Google about their applicants nowadays and sociopaths tend not to score so highly in the recruiment evaluations.

Novell marketing? Never heard of it.

These are not the areas I was referring to as far as competition abatement goes.

I understand, but they are the main cogs to competing with Microsoft in the data center/server room, which is where Novell’s business is traditionally staked.

It’s not about revenue, it’s about control. Remember why Microsoft let people ’steal’ its software for many years. There is also the aspect of rewards from a strategic ally.

When it comes to cutting jobs, which was the premise of your original post, revenue absolutely matters. The loss of revenue can generally equate to a deterioration of the bottom line. When that happens, jobs go.

Is control an issue? Maybe. But that isn’t directly relevant to the issue of job losses. The unbalanced loss of traditional customers(netware, groupwise, whatever) compared to the influx of new customers(linux, OES Linux, whatever) in conjunction with the general state of the economy is by far the bigger issue to Novell than OOXML or Mono. It’s a hard time for a company to try and change their identity. It’s even harder when that company seems to rely on guerrilla marketing.

Novell’s core business problems, from an outsider’s(mine) prospective anyway, are not entirely technical. It seems to me that they can’t get certain people to buy into why they should run Novell’s software over Microsoft’s software, or to put it another way, they’re not showing the value added over Microsoft’s offerings.

To be fair to Novell, that’s largely not their fault. Microsoft leveraged their position as the dominant OS vendor to give their own product teams preferential access to the necessary APIs. As a result, Microsoft’s products always looked better since they were better integrated to the operating system. I have heard numerous stories over the years of Novell’s battles to get API information, which was either not forthcoming or only made available to them at a late date. With this in mind, it’s especially ironic that Novell is cooperating to such a large extent with the company that they should still consider as their biggest competitor, Microsoft.

@Roy S.

It’s not about revenue, it’s about control. Remember why Microsoft let people ’steal’ its software for many years. There is also the aspect of rewards from a strategic ally.

I understand the first two sentences but I don’t see what you mean by the 3rd sentence. Could you elaborate on it?

Novell’s core businesses have been taking a beating since NT 4.0 was released. Novell’s losses in their traditionally strong market segments are not new and certainly not as a result of their deal with Microsoft.

Agreed to an extent. On the marketing front, Novell has refrained from disparaging Microsoft.

Conversely, Novell has not stopped developing their core products as a result of the Microsoft deal. Since the deal with Microsoft, Novell has released a major revision for OES, GroupWise, and Zenworks(ZCM). To say they have been prevented from competing due to the deal is incorrect at worst, misguided at best.

These are not the areas I was referring to as far as competition abatement goes.

As far as Novell’s bottom line is concerned, I highly doubt all of the issues you might have with it amount to much revenue, gained or lost. Mono doesn’t make money for Novell, Moonlight doesn’t make money for Novell, OOXML doesn’t make money for Novell.

It’s not about revenue, it’s about control. Remember why Microsoft let people ‘steal’ its software for many years. There is also the aspect of rewards from a strategic ally.

As far as Novell’s bottom line is concerned, I highly doubt all of the issues you might have with it amount to much revenue, gained or lost. Mono doesn’t make money for Novell, Moonlight doesn’t make money for Novell, OOXML doesn’t make money for Novell.

Novell’s core business problems, from an outsider’s(mine) prospective anyway, are not entirely technical. It seems to me that they can’t get certain people to buy into why they should run Novell’s software over Microsoft’s software, or to put it another way, they’re not showing the value added over Microsoft’s offerings.

Microsoft did to Novell what it did to Corel.

I buy that. My point is, however, I don’t understand why you felt the need to try to wedge statements about the Microsoft agreement in your post about possible Novell job loses if it’s not the major reason for those loses.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of the deal, I personally believe it’s fairly irrelevant to Novell’s business as a whole and as an extension of that, internal job cuts.

A better route, as suggested by many including myself at the time, was a joining of forces with GNU/Linux vendors, not with Microsoft.

In case someone wants to make suggestions: RHovsepian@novell.com

Let’s try again; “are you insinuating that the deal with Microsoft was the catalyst for what could possibly happen with the jobs or the sole reason? “

Additionally, bear in mind that it’s Novell which catalysed all those patent deals, public patent threats, extortions, etc. Microsoft used Novell to justify this, to broadcast the message, to sell patent vouchers, and to scare customers in general.