The following lump of news is not technical, so if you don't care for 'fluff', you are advised to skip this post, which is intended to balance criticisms of Novell and serve as an archival record for future reference.

Donation

Earlier this week somebody offered a donation to this Web site, but this was politely declined because we are not prepared for this. Shane just about manages to cover the hosting fees because of AdSense, which the last time I checked (or at least heard from him) pays less than a dollar a day. This site makes no profit at all and it is driven by voluntary effort alone.

Also on the subject on donations, Novell has just donated some software.

Catholic Charities recently received almost $40,000 in donated software from Novell Inc. as part of the Massachusetts-based corporation’s community relations program.

Former Novellers

A company which is headed by a former Noveller is coming to Novell's back yard for some more staff and growth.

Data virtualizer xkoto moves from Canada to Waltham

[...]

xkoto CEO David Patrick, a former general manager of Waltham's Novell Inc., said each location is on a hiring track as part of a growth plan that includes nearly doubling the company's total staff from 30 employees now to approximately 50 by December 2008.

Jack Messman makes a surprise appearance in the news as well.

Telogis, Inc., the leader in real-time GPS location technologies, today announced that the Board of Directors has named Jack L. Messman as a Director and Chairman of the Board.

For those who do not know Jack Messman, here is a video from The Digital Tipping Point. Here is a Messman-era SuSE/SUSE:

Business Relationships

The Yahoo/Microsoft hard-to-get we-don't-want-you affair continues. Novell gets a mention.

Now, some prognosticators are suggesting AOL and Yahoo! are in talks. Two dinosaurs talking merger reminds me of Novell running around and buying companies. Remember Novell? They owned the networking business until their policies stripped them of success. Novell ran around buying companies that were starting to falter. Novell is now a big "N" for "Not."

Microsoft loves to grow through acquisitions, too. Yet, they usually purchase new companies and not failing ones.

The Novell/Microsoft relationship is mentioned here:

But is there a real discrepancy here, or are Google and Nokia just showing the kind of "coopetition" that has long marked relationships between firms such as Microsoft and Novell, or Sony and Toshiba, where two vendors partner in one market while competing against each other elsewhere?

The next post will look at more technical news from the past week. ⬆