Having exceeded their original business targets, the companies continue to see strong demand for interoperability and intellectual property (IP) peace of mind.
"The Novell and Microsoft agreement provides Zabka Polska S.A. an interoperability solution incorporating the essential element of intellectual property assurances," said Maciej Klaskala, chief information officer for Zabka Polska S.A.
One year after sealing their surprise alliance, Novell and Microsoft have announced an expansion of their technical collaboration to "link together the existing Windows and Linux frameworks".
As those who’ve followed in greater depth the twists and turns of Microsoft’s attempts to pressure Linux distribution vendors to pay for alleged infringement on Microsoft patents know, the Microsoft-Novell partnership has not been all smooth sailing. In the past year, here are a few of the related milestones in the Novell-Microsoft relationship that Microsoft isn’t celebrating in today’s press release...
With the word "alliance" (not even "partnership") making an appearance and revealing the nature of this evolving deal, it is hard to deny the fact that Novell and Microsoft are merely inseparable. They are working together to push all other Linux vendors out of the market, unless those vendors surrender to Microsoft's ludicrous demands. This sums up one of the troublesome effects of this patent deal. And yes, Ron Hovsepian, it's a patent deal, so stop denying this already.
Linux client and server distributor in Japan and China, Turbolinux, has aligned with Microsoft Corp., in a business agreement that expands their recent collaborations. The deal advances interoperability, furthers research and development collaboration, and provides IP assurances for Turbolinux users.
Actually, this is very surprising. I've started to notice a trend in all the announcements the two companies have made over the past year: Novell stresses interoperability while Microsoft beats its drum on patent protection.
[...]
I wonder how long Microsoft will continue its efforts to try to cast the deal as about IP. It's not for Novell, it seems to me now. Microsoft did the deal to hurt Linux - there's no other explanation for it. It has no fiduciary duty to enable a competitor (unless its a weaker competitor against the Linux market leader, Red Hat). It has a fiduciary duty to kill that competitor.
Comments
vexorian
2007-11-08 23:26:01
vexorian
2007-11-08 23:33:57
This whole accessibility charade reminds me the anti ODF FUD that they tried once.
Roy Schestowitz
2007-11-08 23:49:08
Oopsie. Should work fine now.
Yes, indeed. It took ages to squash that nasty FUD (screen magnifiers and the use of blind people to block or suppress ODF acceptance in Massachusetts). See notes on accessibility FUD in MA here and a good video of Mr. Korn on ODF accessibility here.
eet
2007-11-09 13:19:19
Your blogging grows evermore far-fetched.
Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from an abusive Internet troll
Truth Seeker
2007-11-09 16:49:12
Roy Schestowitz
2007-11-09 19:09:09
No, the two statements are completely independent.
The fact that the two companies liaise to fight other companies like Red Hat is nothing new. We said that many times before. The new new bit is to do with terminology and "alliance" is a very strong word.
Remember that Novell had anti-Windows messages in its Web site. Shortly after the deal with Microsoft, Novell 'cleaned up' its site.
Repre Hendor
2007-11-09 19:16:54
One of them is Citrix. Now listen to what Citrix' CEO has to say about Microsoft ():
"Microsoft is a giant aircraft carrier. They move at very deliberate and predictable speed in enterprise computing. You know where they will be two or three years from now. So the onus is on you as a company to listen to those signals and steer with that, instead of getting in front of the aircraft carrier or getting swamped in the wake of it."
You can bet that Microsoft is also *able* to tell their "partners" where they will be in two or three years from now. And they'll do so if they want. For sure they'll tell where they *don't* want their partners to be.
In that light, and given the above statement: is there still anybody around who thinks Citrix' acquisition of Xen happened without the big aircraft carrier sending his steering signals?
Citrix clearly is acting as a Microsoft proxy in the Xen affair.
Now let's see if Citrix will keep obeying their masters, or if they start running with the loot, once they see that the aircraft carrier shows signs of heading towards an iceberg, or some other major leakage having occurred that dissallows it to keep course and full steam....
Repre Hendor
2007-11-09 19:18:40
http://www.eweek.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=218979,00.asp
Roy Schestowitz
2007-11-09 20:06:30
Same situation with Novell. It's a patent proxy, a GPL proxy (Microsoft wants no direct touch with the licence), an anti-Red Hat proxy, a pro-OOXML proxy, a proxy against the EC's actions, and a few other things. We've covered all of this before.