For quite some time we have suspected that personal financial incentives play a role in the making of controversial (even insane) deals. Somebody from Groklaw identified what s/he believes to be the story behind the Xandros deal. According to one source that I spotted yesterday, Xandros has been negotiating with Microsoft since November 2006. Have a look at this article which goes back to that time:
“About three weeks ago I started to see strange faces pop up in the conference room, and they turned out to be investors. Then one weekend, someone had cleaned out a [seldom-used] room and given it to an investor as an office. A week later we were canned.”
Is it possible that developers are altogether excluded from negotiations which involve non-technical staff? Without seeking their advice, mistakes are bound to be made. Those who negotiate from the “dark side” therefore thrive in secrecy.
Are those that are misinformed responsible for making deals whose outcome is not realised until it’s too late? Recall what Jeremy Allison told us. Also bear in mind that there is quite a series of companies that sign agreements with Microsoft. These deals always work in Microsoft’s favour, but the boardroom is easily lured in by cash. It is oblivious to many factors, such as the fate of many companies that have already liaised with Microsoft, not to mention the reaction from some customers. Lack of transparency produces poor code. Lack of transparency in a company’s decisions produces errors.
Novell. JBoss. XenSource. Zend. Samsung. Xandros.
One by one, free and open source software providers are signing agreements with “the dark side”, the poster child for proprietary software, and (many say) the antithesis of open source: Microsoft.
We had surmised that Novell would be looking to buy a virtualization company with their thirty pieces of silver, with the focus of conjecture at the time being Xensource.
Novell in November quietly acquired a company whose resource virtualization software is being used to bolster the data center automation capabilities of Novell’s ZENworks management package.
The company acquired RedMojo for $972 million, though chose not to make an official announcement at the time.
We have already alluded to the fact that our virtualization and interoperability strategy is strengthened with our agreement with Microsoft.
It should be clear that, for the next twenty years, Windows and Linux are the two key operating environments for customers. Before this deal there were Linux focused companies and Windows focused companies like Microsoft. No company had legitimacy to assert itself as key to both environments.
That has irrevocably changed. Novell is the company which stands at the nexus of both of these key platforms. (In addition to bringing the NetWare base forward on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as part of Open Enterprise Server.)
Why is that? Only Novell has Microsoft’s endorsement as its partner to drive Linux-Windows interoperability. So – of the Linux vendors – only we can speak authoritatively about Windows. With our virtualized solutions, we are linked even closer with the solution that customers need.
Of course, Microsoft is also at the base of Linux and Windows since we will work with them to optimize SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on Veridian. However, although they endorse SUSE at the Linux level, they do not aspire to manage heterogeneity at higher levels. Novell, on the other hand – has made multi-platform support a key requirement from day 1.
Other aspects of the Microsoft agreement
While we have focused on virtualization, there are several other significant pieces of our agreement with Microsoft. Our business collaboration (sales and marketing) is significant. Beyond that, we are collaborating technically in three additional areas related to interoperability and management.
One component is collaboration with Microsoft on standards for Web services management. Technically, there is a great deal of synergy between our two companies on how we see the proper architecture for the future. This collaboration will simplify our systems management products, since the management architectures for Linux and Windows will come together.
Another component is directories. Here, the open source world, Microsoft with Active directory, and traditional Novell products based on eDirectory require considerable joint activity. Customers regularly ask for greater interoperability. We have agreed to move this space forward.
Finally, in the area of document interoperability, we have already provided technology that allows interoperability between Open Office and Open Office XML, the basis for Vista’s Office products.
Feel free to read the entirety of the blog posting, I have to say if you look at Novell’s 2006 year in review and there was no patent covenant, I would be impressed.
Yesterday we mentioned Matt Asay’s speculation about an upcoming Novell acquition. The worst case scenario, as explained before, is that where Novell scoops Xen and then punishes other GNU/Linux distributors. Such a move would hurt Linux tremendously, according to a humble analysis.
Although it is hard to verify the identity of commenters, Ray Ozzie has just posted a comment which confirms this.
Novell will buy Xensoure (sic).
They will release a new ZENworks Q1 for application virtualization on Windows and Suse. Novell also has the only reliable Identity Management, and Directory that scales the Enterprise. No one else comes close IBM, Sun, Oracle and certainly not Red Hat. Suse is now the only “sanctioned” Linux for the Enterprise due to the agreement and work with Microsoft.
If this comment (which was followed by another from a Microsoft MVP who ‘diggs’ for Microsoft at Digg.com) is not authentic, then we apologise for the confusion. However, it cannot be ignored. I have seen Ozzie commenting in blogs before (e.g. Microsoft-Watch), so I’m inclined to suspect it’s a genuine and authentic statement.
Also consider that if Microsoft purchased XenSource directly then VMWare and the other virtualization vendors would rightly scream “Antitrust”, since Microsoft would be building versions of Vista/WindowsServer targeted to work with Xen’s Paravirtualization mode. Maybe such Antitrust issues could be avoided by Novell purchasing XenSource ( using funds provided by Microsoft in November ) and Microsoft and Novell working on getting Microsoft’s OSs and Xen together ( under the *existing* Novell Microsoft November agreement ).
With one major deal, another could soon follow. You may wish to head over to InforWorld’s Open Sources where Matt Asay speculates that Novell will acquire XenSource or Altiris with the money it has received from Microsoft. XenSource is already collaborating with Microsoft (at least to at some level of capacity) and I suspect it has a new branch of operation in Redmond, WA. Its recent commercial moves seem to make this merger/acquisition probable.
XenSource, Inc., the leader in infrastructure virtualization solutions based on the open source Xen hypervisor, today announced XenEnterprise for Windows and Linux, the market’s first commercially-packaged Xen virtualization solution supporting both Microsoft Windows and Linux guests.
If a merger as such (takeover rather, due to scale differences) ever became a reality, it would have a negative effect on rivalling GNU/Linux distributors such as Red Hat and Mandriva.
Note: We apologise for a downtime that was experienced earlier today. We have good reasons to suspect that there are/were malicious hacking attempts. We are still investigating this incident.
Several times in the past we mentioned Novell’s plan to virtualise GNU/Linux under the ‘stable and secure’ Microsoft Windows platform [1, 2, 3, 4] rather than apply simple logic and do things the other way around, honouring and utilising the value of Linux, as well as giving it muchly-deserved dominance. Here is the latest take on this surprising change of heart at Novell.
When it comes to Linux servers, a few months can make a whole lot of difference. Earlier this year, Red Hat, Novell, and most major Linux vendors were doing their best to fend off Windows Virtualized Server by getting their own virtualization offerings out the door first. But now, as part of a multifaceted deal unveiled in November, Novell and its former competitor Microsoft each plan to “optimize” their servers to work best on one another’s VM (virtual machine) platforms.
The new version (6) of Fedora Core, which became available for download in November, shows that major Linux vendors see the importance of virtualisation and virtual private servers in years to come.
Xen in Fedora Core 6 comes with a GUI named Virtual Machine Manager.
Shown below is Xen running under Debian in good ol’ command-line mode.
Loosely-related side note: a couple of weeks ago we mentioned how temporary trends affect hype and can therefore have an unsustainable impact on Web sites such as DistroWatch. As predicted, Ubuntu has returned to the top of the pageviews-based ranks list.
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