Posted in Novell at 6:52 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Novell Operations Center is released in the 90th minute, just before Novell enters a dark age
ANOTHER PRODUCT WHICH AttachMSFT is going to get from Novell is called Novell Operations Center and it is a new product. Novell uploaded a presentation about it a few times because the company also started pushing advertisements into YouTube in general, and not just for Novell Operations Center. Here is the press release about this product, which came out in a week with high density of Novell activities (probably in preparation for the big announcement). As Oiaohm puts it: “Product releases before the sale would be developers attempting to keep there jobs at least in a maintainership role.”
Summary: Novell’s Identity Access Management business is also at risk
BASED on what we learned in IRC from people whose job it is to sell/maintain Novell deployments, customers of Novell may soon rush to other companies like Microsoft, just because of the uncertainty around AttachMSFT [sic]. Novell’s financial results were already expected to be bad, but now it is going to be even worse because the Novell brand is likely to become history after decades out there in the market. Despite brand recognition, Identity Access Management is only one of Novell’s wannabe products these days and patents associated with it are being passed to a Microsoft shell. Novell’s PR people desperately try to create interest in Novell’s Identity Management [1, 2] and there is even a new press release in many sites [1, 2, 3]. It failed to generate news coverage and all we could find is this tiny mention. Given the tiny impact Novell’s Identity Management has had, is it likely that AttachMSFT will choose to keep it? Can such an asset be sold at all? It’s just proprietary software without a major userbase or any patents at all (Novell values patents). █
Posted in Novell at 6:02 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Pulse/Vibe comes out too quickly (still in beta phase) very shortly before Novell announces a takeover by AttachMSFT [sic]
We have thus far published over a dozen posts about Novell’s Pulse. Well, Novell is losing its pulse right now [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and just before selling to AttachMSFT [sic] it was making many quick announcements, one of which was about Pulse, which is now called “Vibe”. One of Novell’s managers is boosting “Enterprise Social Networking” (putting a “professional” gown on existing software) and the press release from Novell merely speaks about an “Open Beta of Novell Vibe Collaboration Platform”.
So it’s not even ready yet? Here is a short article which quotes some of the above:
“We’ve always been contributors to both the Google Wave protocol itself and building gadgets that leverage it. By definition since it was always open source, with respect to the folks at Google, whether they’re engaged or not doesn’t have a specific impact on tools that leverage the Wave federation protocol.”
Ross Chevalier, president of Novell Canada, talking about the release of new Vibe collaboration technology based on Google’s Wave protocol. The search giant killed Wave, one time a highly touted collaboration service, earlier this year. (Datamation)
Novell’s PR people wrote some more blog posts about it [1, 2] and Novell has uploaded almost 20 “use cases” and explanations such as this one to YouTube. Given that it’s just a beta, what’s all the hype for? Here they are boasting Microsoft Office integration. Over at IDG there is this promotion which is just one among several from IDG (Novell pays IDG via IDC contracts). The latter one says:
Previously known as Novell Pulse, the enterprise-focused Vibe collaboration platform is available either as a cloud-based service or on-site software.
Novell Vibe includes both enterprise features like real-time document editing, conversation retention and work group creation as well as social networking tools for direct messaging, chats and wikis.
As Sean Michael Kerner put it , “The Novell Vibe beta comes just a few months after Google abandoned Google Wave as an online service.” AttachMSFT may abandon Vibe before its final release, just like Google more or less abandoned Wave (they made an appliance from leftovers). █
Summary: Novell’s mail business is now in another company’s hands and there is reason to believe that change may occur due to GroupWise losing market share
ONE of Novell’s ways of staying somewhat relevant is an E-mail legacy it has maintained for a while, even in the face of Google which disrupts the area (this new comparison which mentions GroupWise is mostly about Microsoft and Google). abend.orgwrites about a GroupWise 9 update being out there just shortly before AttachMSFT formally arrives. GroupWise 8.0 SP2 HP1 has also just been released and CompanionLink brags about GroupWise support in a bunch of its marketing messages about Outlook/two-way sync with many different mobile platforms/handsets [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].
The article says: “In the early stages of the email platform migration, nearly 2,000 city employees were using Google’s email service to test the system. However, after learning that the system may not comply with new archiving and data-leak prevention regulations, these employees will begin using the previous system – Novell’s GroupWise. Even as some employees believe GroupWise to be outdated, the solution offers greater security than Google and will improve the LAPD’s compliance capability.”
There was a campaign of FUD from Novell and Microsoft when LA first announced its intention to dump Novell in favour of Google. How will AttachMSFT behave under the same circumstances? █
Posted in Microsoft, Novell at 5:03 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: AttachMSFT’s acquisition of Novell assets may mean a rocky future for ZENworks, which has just celebrated version 11
A couple of weeks ago Novell released an unusual number of products or announcements of products, almost as though it was rushing something. Now we know that it’s possible Novell was just trying to empty its stack ahead of the storm [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. One important product announcement was ZENworks 11, which is a key product of Novell. The question is, will AttachMSFT [sic] keep it? Will it sell it? Will it bury it? We don’t know yet and since nobody else knows for sure it works in Microsoft’s favour. What a disaster.
Grant Ho, director of solutions and product marketing for Novell, says solution providers will need systems management frameworks that allows them to cost effectively manage all the activities associated with PC management. For example, Zenworks 11, which is due out in January, adds support for power management and the ability to simultaneously support Windows and Linux platforms.
A newer article comes from CBR, but it does not yet say anything about AttachMSFT because it is not new enough.
If anyone has an opinion on what will happen to ZENworks, please share it with us in IRC or in the comments below (requires registration). █
Novell officially announced the Baracus open project this week as a new effort to provide a network-based boot manager for provisioning and managing systems.
Baracus includes remote boot, provisioning and power management as well as the ability to image, clone and backup systems. With Baracus, Novell is aiming to provide expanded remote boot capabilities beyond what is currently available in open source by way of the Etherboot project and its related technologies.
Novell announced today the release of and support for an open source project called Baracus that provides a boot and build management system for cloud needs.
This is for Fog Computing, which we’ll write about later. Since the project is so young (and it’s rarity for such Novell software to be free/open source) we find it hard to believe that AttachMSFT [sic] will bother keeping it. Just like Oracle eliminated many Sun products, this one too may be released only to die, or for the source code to be given to other people, just like Hula in 2006 [1, 2, 3]. It ‘dared’ to compete with Microsoft’s Exchange. █
Summary: A rushed analysis of where AttachMSFT [sic] will stand when it comes to Novell assets and what this means to the OpenSUSE community
WE have about 10 more posts that we hope to publish today about Novell. In this post, we quickly say that OpenSUSE should prepare for exit from Novell. AttachMSFT [sic] (AttachMSFT was suggested as an Identi.ca Hashtag for the Novell/Attachmate/CPTN/MSFT deal), which is the buyer of Novell assets, is funded by what’s known as a “vulture fund”, which means that it buys companies only to sell whatever it has inside it that’s of value. The rest is just left to rot in the carcass. To quote it from someone else:
Glyn Moody’s tweet said it best. “Attachmate got the carcass after Microsoft’s mates ripped out the juicy stuff.
In our previous posts about the sale [1, 2] including this one about UNIX we have already covered most of the important points, but for those who do not know yet, Elliot’s Singer, the person who is responsible for Novell going on sale in the first place, is the one providing funds to AttachMSFT, which nobody really heard of before. Some background about Singer and his “vulture fund” can be found in:
To quote some readers of ours, Oiaohm speaks about a situation where “Attachmate would be likely to just discontinue mono. No mono no hope for MS of .NET being a golden egg long term.”
ThistleWeb says: “I do note the “consortium led by MS” part, aka the PR chaff they can use to deflect any criticism in legal cases”
Jan says: “More strangeness in #AttachMSFT “But as part of the deal [...] Elliott is to become an equity shareholder in Attachmate” http://is.gd/hAOV2 ”
Qu1j0t3 says: “evidently another successful hack of the legal system. #antitrust #microsoft #novell #attachmsft”
Oiaohm adds “CPTN Holdings is another name for Microsoft. [...] CPTN Holdings, a Microsoft (MSFT) led consortium”
Yes, antitrust is a major factor here and a bigger discussion about it can be found in our IRC logs (to be published after midnight GMT). Antitrust scrutiny might not have the ability to take proxies into account.
Back in 2006, Microsoft paid Novell over $300 million to put it under a lot of Microsoft control. Today it finds a way to pay a mere $450 million (small money to technology giants) and takes everything which is needs from Novell, notably software patents.
Jan asks: “What will happen with Mono after AttachMSFT?”
He also tells Jono Bacon (Canonical): “#AttachMSFT has Elliott (that hedgefund that bidded for NOVL in february) as investor. Makes sense now? ;-)”
Rob Myers explains to Jono Bacon: “And certain “intellectual property” goes to a Microsoft consortium…”
Alan Lord tells to Jono Bacon: “And I bet that that information (which #swpats etc.) will remain locked down until they decide to use them…”
“Boycott Novell” warns about Novell because it recognises it as a danger, especially a long-term danger. I personally received messages today (or messages to “Boycott Novell”) which give us credit for foresight.
OMG!Ubuntu! has covered this too, but then again, who has not? Novell is over and “it will be a bummer to see it go,” writes abeNd.org, “i know a bunch of my customers will probably scramble to want to migrate to microsoft asap”
Novell Inc. said Monday morning that it will be acquired in a private-equity-led deal valued at $6.10 a share, or about $2.2 billion.
Carlo Piana writes: “Now I’m in #paranoid mode WRT Novell sale. Going to read what the well informed @maryjofoley can tell us”
Is he serious when calling Mary Jo Foley well informed? She repeats what Microsoft says and Microsoft misinforms more than almost anyone. Here is what she wrote:
So far, Microsoft is saying little about its role in the deal.
“We are pleased to be a part of the acquisition of certain intellectual property assets of Novell. Microsoft looks forward to continuing our collaboration with Novell into the future, to bring mixed source IT solutions to customers,” said the company via a statement from Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing.
[...]
Attachmate officials have said they plan to operate Novell as two business units, Novell and SUSE, and join them with their Attachmate and NetIQ businesses.
Update: It sounds like Mono development will continue under the new Attachmate owners, as well.
No word about OpenSUSE. AttachMSFT just want to suck what’s left of SLE* (contracts) and have Microsoft paid for patents that nobody knows anything about. VMB_ware with Microsoft’s Maritz at the top would not have been much better as a takeover, but at least it’s one of those real companies with known products and brands. Our reader rpgdude writes: “OIN should buy the patents” (well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?).
cubezzz remarks: “Novell continues to grant IBM’s license of Unix”
It will get quite complicated if Microsoft indeed gets UNIX. But again, what about OpenSUSE? Nobody appears to be talking about it. Unless a way is found to make a lot of money from it, what will possibly keep Novell/AttachMSFT funding which the project requires? Novell was already a bad steward of OpenSUSE, for example whenever servers fell.
We have plenty of catching up to do with OpenSUSE news (although there is little going on there nowadays) and one thing that caught our eyes the other night is this post about OpenSUSE and KDE, which ends with:
Finally, users can make visual contact with their virtual desktops by hovering the bottom of the screen to make these arrows appear and go to a different virtual desktop. Additionally, there could be a window list much like Mac OSX’s or Windows 7 but sitting comfortably on the right edge of the screen which accumulates in similar fashion to what AfterStep did borrowing from NeXTStep.
OpenSUSE is technically just as good if not better than the proprietary competition, but it does not have marketing.
“Novell claims to have the most supported applications (watch the video above) — a claim previously disputed by others.”Most of the other news we found is just about SLES, so there is almost nothing to say about OpenSUSE. Timothy Prickett Morgan mentioned SLES in some of his good articles, the latter of which states: “At the moment, ScaleMP’s vSMP Foundation shared memory clustering software works with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5 and Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11.”
Novell servers also get a mention in other places (similar here), with the most major story being announced in a press release to generate some news like:
To summarise the point of this quick post, Novell will no longer be Novell; it is going to be a bunch of assets in a shell, with its patents stripped away and sold to a Microsoft shell. OpenSUSE is unlikely to be part of this plan and since Novell too appears to have lost interest, the talented OpenSUSE people should try to fork OpenSUSE (trademark owned by Novell) or contribute to a different distribution. Novell authorised the death knell of OpenSUSE 4 years ago when it agreed with Microsoft that OpenSUSE should not be used in businesses which make money, not without being sued or extorted by Microsoft anyway. It’s there in the deal — the agreement both companies signed without consultation from OpenSUSE members. █
Summary: The older generation of Novellers keeps leaving and the latest departure is of Richard Price
WHAT a day it has been for Novell. As we catch up with the news, we find that Richard Price from Novell has left to join CA Technologies.
Richard Price: Before joining CA Technologies in June 2010, Richard worked for US systems software company, Novell, as Sales Director for Australia and New Zealand. There, he focused on achieving key revenue results for the company and managing customer relationships.
Speaking of Novell staff, Schmidt gets this mention in relation to his old role at Novell. The company’s competition with Microsoft is recalled without mentioning Microsoft’s violations. It’s put like this: “The whole situation smacks of the forgotten battle between Microsoft and Novell over file server OS.
“Novel was fixated on its huge installed base while developers worked on products that run on Microsoft’s OS. Novell lost in case you didn’t know.”
Novell is now becoming somewhat of a part of Microsoft. Those who care about freedom may soon be fired, unless they flee first. This helps explain why so many Novell managers are leaving, as well. They can see what’s coming and they see it from the management tier. █
Content is available under CC-BY-SA