09.27.11
Posted in Novell, Servers at 10:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft’s little baby
Summary: A quick walk through the news shows that “cloud” hype — not business freedom — is what Novell still offers to prospective customers
THE NOVELL of 2008-2010 was not the same as the older Novell, which still marketed “Open Source” rather than “Cloud Computing”.
Somewhere along the line Novell decided to de-emphasise its original selling point. This let Red Hat claim the higher moral ground, not just because it was not paying Microsoft for GNU/Linux. In this month’s news we are reminded of SUSE’s history: “The past few years have seen many open source companies being bought by proprietary ones. Back in 2003, Novell bought German Linux maker SuSE. A few years ago, Sun Microsystems bought database maker MySQL in a landmark $1 billion deal, and then last year, Sun Microsystems was itself snapped up by Oracle. One of the more recent deals is VMWare’s acquisition of Zimbra.”
Over time Novell made SUSE more and more proprietary, to the point where it is marketed as “cloud” OS, its source code is hard to obtain, and there is a shady patent deal elevating its cost.
Novelldemo has just uploaded about 10 more videos like this one video about a dead product, Vibe. Why bother? Maybe a marketing leftover. Either way, this too is an example of proprietary software from Novell, based on open source from another company (Google). It got marketed as “cloud” and failed to gain traction. Attachmate pulled the plug.
Another new article from the same source says: “”We built the platform ourselves, but adopted the Novell cloud manager. Business people provision resources on the fly,” says Richard Vester, head of hosted services at Vodacom Business.”
“Another similar product from Novell is just the repackaging of Red Hat’s product.”Cloud manager, eh? Be sure to check where it came from [1, 2]. Another similar product from Novell is just the repackaging of Red Hat’s product.
An additional new article states: “However the technology is used, shopping in a few years may not look much like shopping today.
““We hope so,” said Wilson, who worked for IT firm Novell for 21 years. “We’re counting on it.””
To be fair, the decisions at Novell came from managers consulted by marketing people, it is not the developers down the food chain who should be blamed. Developers often prefer to share their code, making it a source of pride, too.
Another article quotes Randy Hugie (program manager, certification and skills assessment at Novell) as saying: “Using the cloud, we implemented a 14-week, wide-scale partner academy.”
More cloud hype then. This other article which mentioned PlateSpin still plays along with those ideas. Novell bought some “cloud” stuff rather than vendors of Free/Open Source software. All that is left from Novell is legal mess, as we shall show later. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
09.20.11
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Servers, Windows at 1:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Acid3 results for Internet Explorer 8.0
Summary: Why Microsoft’s erosion in the server side (usage-wise, not revenue-wise) is likely to further motivate erosion on the desktop
HE WHO controls the back room will also dominate the client side, be it cellphones and desktops or whatever. It’s a well known fact and one that must really worry Microsoft.
Major Microsoft outages may lead to ASA intervention for false advertising. There is this new article about the Hotmail outage, sent to us yesterday by a reader. This whole downtime mess helps demonstrate what happens when one relies on Windows and other Microsoft products. Just watch how Microsoft fails to tackle ARM compatibility issues, even in the mythical Vista 8 which lacks support for browser plugins and is likely to suffer a backlash similar to Vista’s when it’s out in 2 or more years. It has been advertised since April 2009, 4+ years in advance (a time period throughout which a GNU/Linux distribution might have 8+ new versions released).
Going back to Web services, this is where GNU/Linux is clearly winning as we noted some days ago. The Inquirer has this to add:
Microsoft’s IIS webserver is the second most widely used webserver daemon after Apache. While it never occupied the top spot, at one point in 2007 it was starting to get close to Apache’s hugely popular webserver software. However since 2008, its market share plummeted and while it still manages to hold onto second place, there’s the best part of 50 percentage points difference between Apache and Microsoft’s IIS and the Vole’s IIS apparently is back to the level of market share that it saw in 1997.
Apache’s HTTPD webserver is popular for two reasons. It runs on just about every operating system out there, and it can be implemented in other products such as Oracle’s own application server products. Microsoft’s IIS, on the other hand, is closed source and runs only on Windows, so it’s no surprise that it lags behind Apache’s more robust and flexible sofware offering.
Microsoft failed so badly that it decided to just hijack Yahoo and eventually iinstalled a henchwoman there. Microsoft might be preparing to formally scoop up Yahoo! and maybe Nokia too, at least at a later stage (when it becomes cheap). Check out the news following Microsoft's passage of Nokia's patents to patent trolls (an antitrust issue):
Finnish mobile phone company Nokia has been deleted from the Stoxx Europe 50 index, a benchmark index owned by Deutsche Börse and the SIX Swiss Exchange Group that tallies the top 50 largest European corporations.
Late in August, Stoxx announced that Nokia would be delisted from the Stoxx 50 index, along with three banks: Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit from Italy, and GRP Societe Generale from France. Meaning the former powerhouse mobile phone maker is no longer big enough to be considered one of Europe’s biggest corporations.
Steve Ballmer keeps talking about Windows phones that don’t exist yet (see articles in the the previous post) and Microsoft is trying to make people think of about mythical versions of Windows rather than today’s version of Windows. What does that tell us? █
“In the face of strong competition, Evangelism’s focus may shift immediately to the next version of the same technology, however. Indeed, Phase 1 (Evangelism Starts) for version x+1 may start as soon as this Final Release of version X.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Permalink
Send this to a friend
09.17.11
Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Servers, Windows at 6:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s market share in servers is said to have slid to 1997 levels
FOLLOWING its malicious attack on Yahoo!, Microsoft became best evidence of its own demise on the Web. It no longer sought to create compelling products and make these available; instead, Microsoft tried to derail its competitors, preferably stealing their customers in the process. Once they got some crony installed, everything Yahoo! had which was of value to Microsoft got passed to Microsoft or put under the leadership of former Microsoft executives. According to this bit of news, Yahoo! is already well too infected by the Microsoft virus. “MALWARE DISTRIBUTORS have managed to get their rogue ads displayed on Bing and Yahoo when users search for popular software downloads,” says The Inquirer. “Since these ads always appear at the top of the page before the actual search results, and since the rogue websites they point to are near perfect copies of the real ones, the attack most likely has a high infection rate.”
This is why it’s good to limit Microsoft’s presence on the Web. It is nothing but trouble. In other interesting news, “Microsoft’s web server is losing ground” to the point where even Netcraft's flawed statistics show Microsoft approaching single-digit market share. To quote:
Apache has been the most widely used web server on the Internet since the early days of the Web. It still is. The second-most popular web server has been, and still is, Microsoft’s Internet Information Server, IIS. But Microsoft’s web server is now losing ground.
It wasn’t always like this. For quite some time, IIS was gaining ground on Apache, but the tide changed in 2007. Since then Apache has recovered much of its previous dominance, reaching a 65% market share, while the market share for IIS has dwindled below 16%, less than half of what it used to be. That’s a pretty steep drop, bringing the IIS market share back to what it was in 1997, 14 years ago.
In reality, based on the claims of some people, Microsoft’s real IIS market share was somewhere around 12%, whereas Apache and GNU/Linux market share in this area were all along impressive. In September 2008 Steve Ballmer was quoted as saying that “[f]orty percent of servers run Windows,” but he probably used flawed measures/methods. He would only wish for such a high market share. Where servers are concerned, Microsoft may be making money, but it’s not making much an impact. Zero-cost operating systems work a lot better and the Microsoft-taxed distribution, SUSE, is still niche product (for Microsoft lovers such as SAP). █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
08.29.11
Posted in Microsoft, Security, Servers, Windows at 5:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Rise in Windows traffic on the Internet, but not the desirable type of traffic (RDP attacks)
Check out this piece of news: [via]
It’s retro day in the world of Internet security, with an Internet worm dubbed “Morto” spreading via the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).
F-Secure is reporting that the worm is behind a spike in traffic on Port 3389/TCP. Once it’s entered a network, the worm starts scanning for machines that have RDP enabled. Vulnerable machines get Morto copied to their local drives as a DLL, a.dll, which creates other files detailed in the F-Secure post.
SANS, which noticed heavy growth in RDP scan traffic over the weekend, says the spike in traffic is a “key indicator” of a growing number of infected hosts. Both Windows servers and workstations are vulnerable.
Bravo, Microsoft. █
Update: Incidentally, Nokia’s developer network has just been cracked. Based on some tests, the site runs Windows. Netcraft says it ran Windows, but it is now hiding behind Akamai (Linux). Some case sensitivity tests seem to confirm that It runs Windows.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
08.24.11
Posted in Asia, Microsoft, Novell, Servers, Virtualisation, Windows at 6:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Planted by Novell, used by Microsoft
Summary: Microsoft PR, along with Microsoft proponents masquerading as journalists, promote Microsoft’s latest manoeuvre whose purpose to extract money out of GNU/Linux in China
YESTERDAY we wrote about Novell's role in the Hyper-V infestation, which Novell was paid hundreds of millions to help advance. A lot of people may no longer remember how it came about, but we sure documented this over the years.
In its embrace-and-extend-like fashion, Microsoft currently uses what the now-defunct Novell helped create as a departure gift for Microsoft. Novell used to work hard for GNU/Linux tax (through SUSE) in China. But Microsoft has just announced in a press release that it will “help sell Hyper-V infused Linux distro in China,” says a Linux site. This was mostly covered by Microsoft boosters like Scott Fulton, IDG, and Mary Jo Foley who called it “legal covenant agreement” (as in patents too?). “Microsoft has signed a “legal covenant agreement” with Linux operating system provider China Standard Software Co. Ltd. (CS2C),” writes the Microsoft booster and other Microsoft proponents (e.g. Gates-funded Seattle Times which boosts Microsoft all the time) did the same thing to make it seem like Microsoft is a friend of GNU/Linux when it fact it’s working to tax GNU/Linux, thanks to the seminal work from Novell. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
08.23.11
Posted in Microsoft, Novell, Servers, SLES/SLED, Virtualisation, Windows at 11:14 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: More examples of the way Microsoft uses SUSE developers to put its Trojan horses inside the competition so as to grow from the inside
SEVERAL years ago and even last year we showed how Microsoft was using Novell as a back door for entering the HPC market, which is overwhelmingly dominated by GNU/Linux. Now, watch how Microsoft is using Novell’s implant for Microsoft (inside Linux) to create an unnecessary dependency on proprietary software. The whole Hyper-V nonsense that Greg K-H has been helping Microsoft advance is finding its way in a Linux-oriented market, leading to Microsoft partnerships and a drift away from software freedom. Novell has been nothing but trouble and SUSE is likely to be equally troublesome. Putting aside Microsoft’s and Novell’s Windows harmony (new YouTube videos), there is clearly some sort of attempt to embed Microsoft (and Microsoft tax) inside GNU/Linux. The question remains then, why would anybody choose SUSE over another distribution? And why would anyone attend the OpenSUSE events rather than broader scope events such as the recent one in Berlin? SUSE — like Novell — is like Microsoft inside the GNU/Linux world. It’s only serving itself. Boycott Novell and SUSE.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
08.20.11
Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, OpenSUSE, Patents, Red Hat, Servers at 9:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Poor reporting on the subject of SUSE and Microsoft’s promotion of SUSE, which helps Microsoft turn GNU/Linux into its own cash cow
Sean Kerner has published a valuable article where he quotes SUSE as saying that they “Don’t Get the Credit [They] Deserve”. Funny, eh?
Have a look at this piece where Kerner does not neglect to mention the Microsoft ties (the incidental case of good journalism from him):
According to Clark, Attachmate didn’t buy Novell just to ‘milk’ the SUSE business, it bought it with the intention of aggressively growing the business. To that end, at the LinuxCon event, SUSE hung out a ‘we’re hiring’ sign. Clark said SUSE is hiring approximately 20 people to help staff various parts of the business.
[...]
SUSE has also recently extended its deal with Microsoft to the tune of an additional $100 million. As part of the deal, Microsoft resells SUSE Linux and works with SUSE on interoperability issues. Microsoft also provides SUSE with a patent covenant that it promises not to sue SUSE users over any alleged infringement of Microsoft’s intellectual property that might be in open source software.
Microsoft is funding SUSE to harm free distributions. Nothing has changed since 2006. Now, watch this weird new blog post from the 451 Group. Well, in an amazingly whitewashy piece, it is Jay (of all people) who neglects to see the bigger picture (Microsoft trying to injure Red Hat, for example, while turning GNU/Linux into its own cash cow). Jay lets it seem like Microsoft is the “world’s broadest supporter of Linux” (trollish headline). But to quote:
Despite the concerns about Microsoft’s control over SUSE Linux or Linux in general, the fact of the matter is Microsoft’s investment of both dollars, including its SUSE deals worth a few hundred million, and investment of of resources, such as the interoperability work with Novell/SUSE, the kernel contribution, the cross-OS and hypervisor support work with Red Hat and the support of CentOS, Microsoft is significantly supporting Linux development and use in the enterprise.
I wrote last year about the uncertainty around Novell/SUSE kernel contribution given the Attachmate acquisition.
Microsoft is still turning GNU/Linux into its own cash cow, which at the same time makes it harder for GNU/Linux to compete. It is the same strategy it uses to attack Android. How can anyone not see this?
As we pointed out yesterday, there are those who play the role of “apologist” for SUSE for purely technical reasons. There is that component called “OpenSUSE” (which organises events and contests), but its goal is to help sell Microsoft-taxed SLE* at the expense of Red Hat and Debian GNU/Linux, for example. Who benefits from this? We are not arguing that OpenSUSE is technically broken; in fact, based on this new review “[t]he only real sore point in the whole [OpenSUSE] experience was the perceived slight slowness of the system, though the numbers in the system monitor somehow did not bear that out. Otherwise, it’s stable, relatively user-friendly, quite professional, and reminds me of my favorite distribution, Linux Mint.”
But it’s not about the technical nature of the distro. Vulnerabilities too aside [1, 2], the main issue is that Microsoft is exploiting SUSE — OpenSUSE included — to make Free software a Microsoft cash cow. To give SUSE credit or to say that Microsoft is “world’s broadest supporter of Linux” is worse than stupid; it’s possibly dishonest, depending on intent. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
07.22.11
Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Servers, Windows at 4:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Amid more downtimes we learn that Microsoft’s Windows franchise keeps declining, based on Microsoft’s own figures (which may be highly biased in its favour)
A RATHER SHORT WHILE ago Microsoft reported (although it is not yet audited) that the division responsible for Windows saw a decline in business (year-to-year), which must mean that Apple and GNU/Linux are probably gaining (along with new form factors that gradually displace the desktop). But Windows is also sold for the lucrative market of servers and according to recent statistics that we saw and shared, the real market share (not revenue) of Windows in Web servers is somewhere around 30% if not less. It is not hard to see why. We have gathered many stories on the subject. See some in the wiki and BPOS downtime posts going quite a way back. No wonder its boss left the company.
Well, downtime seems to be happening again (we sometimes call it "Office 360", implying a 5-day-long downtime), demonstrating the weakness of Windows in the back room:
Microsoft has apologised for yet another Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) outage that left customers across the pond struggling to access email.
Only last month, the software firm was forced to say sorry after its troubled online service crashed for three hours, which followed problems in May.
Microsoft confirmed the problem in a statement sent to The Reg: “On 19 July beginning at approximately 8:30 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), some BPOS customers in North America began experiencing intermittent access to email”.
This was reported by other sources, but we no longer cover Microsoft as closely as we used to to as the threat from Microsoft is lower (Microsoft is smaller and weaker than it used to be). In fact, it is rather hilarious to see Microsoft racing to vapourware post-Windows 8 (looking at some imaginary point some time around 2015 or simply never).
Based on Microsoft’s own documents we know that this is a sign of weaknesses. Windows just isn’t selling well, so Microsoft is busy selling dreams, not products (to OEMs, not actual users). █
“In the face of strong competition, Evangelism’s focus may shift immediately to the next version of the same technology, however. Indeed, Phase 1 (Evangelism Starts) for version x+1 may start as soon as this Final Release of version X.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Permalink
Send this to a friend
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
