Summary: Reiteration of the foolishness seen in the latest Microsoft deal (sellout) of Attachmate, which put its men in charge of SUSE

Nearly 5 years after signing a patent deal with Microsoft, Novell is no more. Attachmate took over the company, whose Web domain is mostly inactive except when new faces appear as in this case:

It’s been about 2.5 months that I have been in the role of President and General Manager of Novell, and since joining The Attachmate Group, Novell has taken many steps towards defining the next great chapter in its evolution and history.

What has Attachmate actually accomplished so far? It recently renewed the patent deal with Microsoft, which only leaves OpenSUSE in more of a scandalous scenario. The project is mostly idle, much like some Tumbleweed in the wind (there is a new article about it).

Christine Hall further solidifies the stance that we should keep the same attitude towards SUSE. She writes:

Indeed, it did seem that Boycott Novell had outlived it’s usefulness, until Monday’s announcement that Microsoft had renewed their deal with SUSE and would be putting $100 million into the Linux distro’s coffers. Although the announcement on the SUSE web site made no mention of patents, tech news sites like InformationWeek have indicated that it’ll be business as usual, with MS’s patent FUD being given the perception of legitimacy through SUSE..

[...]

Techrights is probably right, even after this development. Really, nothing has changed, it’s just the same old deal extended for another four years. There may be nothing about this deal that doesn’t stink, and stink badly, but there’s nothing new here. Sadly, the Microsoft/SUSE connection would seem to have become a legacy with which we are doomed to live for as long as both companies are viable.

This is a real shame. There was a time when SUSE was considered by many to be the Rolls Royce of distros. Now it’s basically “Windows for Linux.” All they need to do now is add a “Start” button, a registry, and put it on a file system that’s prone to rapid fragmentation.

Like we said before, people should strongly urge other people to boycott SUSE and choose other distributions instead. It’s very feasible and the boycott does work. The only use left for Novell is its case against SCO (which Pamela Jones continues to cover), but just like any company that falls into Microsoft’s hand, there is no future left. Former Novell employee Dr. Bill gets it wrong about how Novell got SUSE and how Attachmate gets SUSE in the following new video. Basically, he wrongly asserts that Novell bought SUSE from SUSE and that Attachmate bought SUSE from Novell rather than just buy the whole of Novell.

Novell was bad news for SUSE all along, especially after the Microsoft deal. Now that SUSE is in Microsoft-friendly hands, there is no reason to feel loyal to SUSE based on its old self. The move back to Germany is not a sign of independence or self-liberation, it is the increased dependence on Microsoft under leadership from Attachmate (previous SUSE leaders left or got nudged out). Let this entire affair teach us that Microsoft deals are suicide. Another sign of this is that, as we covered before, Xandros recently sold Scalix — a piece of news that even the Canadian press has covered a while later:

Fresco Microchip, a Toronto company with Ottawa operations that develop television imaging technology, has raised $9 million in new financing. Celtic House Venture Partners, Ventures West and others put the money into Fresco which previously raised $39.3 million Xandros, a New York company which develops Linux business software in Ottawa, has sold a Scalix Linus email product line for $12 million in cash and stock to Sebring Software of Sarasota, Florida.

They too break the company into pieces as though it gets liquidated (Attachmate’s deal was hinged upon given Novell’s patents to Microsoft). It wasn’t long ago that Xandros actually bought Scalix. █

Summary: The companies that want to be like Windows die together, along with the lawsuit surrounding their merger/acquisition (as well as the sale of Scalix!)

IT HAS BEEN almost years since we regularly mentioned the second and third GNU/Linux vendors that agreed to pay Microsoft for patents. One bought the other, but this was followed by a long and ugly dispute between employees/managers of Linspire. Ever since then the court proceedings received little attention and the companies got mentioned as an historical reference in articles such as this one which mentions Linspire. Xandros vanished after Presto, although it got mentioned a lot in relation to ASUS returning to Linux, e.g. here and dozens of other publications in many languages. For the curious, we still have our Linspire/Xandros pages, which go all the way back to the time Kevin Carmony sold out to Ballmer, right after he had insulted GNU/Linux and used the “piracy” word. Anyway, the good news is that Carmony lost the legal case (plus legal expenses) in his attempt to defeat his former boss. According to a new report:

San Diego entrepreneur Michael Robertson claims he has scored a win in a lawsuit against the former CEO and CFO of Linspire. According to legal documents released by Robertson, former CEO Kevin Carmony and former CFO Chad Olson are liable for fraud, conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty, and other counts in a spat over disagreements after Linspire was sold to Xandros.

And in other news, Scalix gets out of Xandros just years after Xandros bought it. Not a good sign for Xandros, eh?

Sebring Software Inc. (symbol: SMXI) acquired the Scalix Email and Calendaring Platform from Xandros Inc., a New York-based firm, for $12 million.

To complete the acquisition, Sebring will pay Xandros $5.75 million in cash over six months, plus 6.25 million shares of Sebring’s common stock, being valued at $1 per share, a release says.

There is more information about it in [1, 2]. █

Summary: Another Novell employee moves to Red Hat and Novell continues to focus on initiatives that make Microsoft stronger

Novell has not been particularly healthy to SUSE’s reputation, especially after it signed that patent/collaboration deal with Microsoft. Jakub Steiner left Novell last month and he is joining Red Hat, which also scooped up Novell’s director of ISV ecosystems last month.

Today was my first day at Red Hat.

As SUSE people move to Red Hat, Novell is left with Mono and Moonlight. Its developers keep developing such Microsoft enablers and there is little news apart from that. To Novell, OpenSUSE is just a volunteers magnet from which to produce SLES/SLED, which Microsoft makes money from. Novell helps Microsoft in HPC using SUSE as a ramp (Microsoft finds other routes) and Microsoft also profits from Xandros, by imposing its patent tax on Scalix which was last mentioned in this press release.

Scalix, the award-winning Linux email, group calendaring, and messaging subsidiary of Xandros, Inc., today announced that Ecommerce, Inc., a world leader in web hosting solutions (IX Web Hosting), has chosen Scalix as the premium groupware of choice for their customer base.

There is nothing else in the news about Xandros and very little about Novell, except the OpenSUSE 11.3 release which Stephan Kulow writes about ahead of parties in places like Nürnberg (not much anywhere else). The RC of OpenSUSE 11.3 is now out:

Two weeks after the first release candidate arrived, the openSUSE development team have issued the second and final release candidate (RC) for version 11.3 of the openSUSE operating system. According to the developers, the latest development preview is a “final check” aimed at making sure that “11.3 is polished and in good condition”.

To OpenSUSE’s credit, it gives a fair deal to KDE [1, 2]. With Mandriva having difficulties (Red Hat hired some of its developers), OpenSUSE remains essential to cutting-edge KDE.

wstephenson announced on the opensuse-kde@ mailinglist that openSUSE 11.3 will ship KDE SC 4.4.4, so you want might to test those packages.

OpenSUSE ought to distance itself from Novell/Microsoft, but this requires a name change because the “OpenSUSE” trademark is owned by Novell. █

Summary: “It should be widely known by now. No matter why, when and where, join MS and you will be dead.” –Abe

Richard Hillesley has just published “The lost world of the Xandros desktop,” which is an article that looks at Xandros’ past and present. To quote some bits from this long article:

The latest release of the Xandros Linux desktop edition was in June 2006, which is several lifetimes in the history of Linux. Is this the end of the line for the Xandros desktop?

[...]

The ‘patent covenant’ with Microsoft has had a detrimental effect on Xandros’ ongoing relationships with the Linux user and developer communities. Ostensibly the purpose of the deal with Microsoft was to license protocols to enable Xandros’ BridgeWays and Scalix products to work with Microsoft networks.

Actually, Scalix came later. Xandros bought Scalix in July 2007 (July 9^th to be precise), whereas Xandros sold out to Microsoft on June 4^th.

We have found some new comments on the subject, including one in Tux Machines:

Xandros propaganda for smartphones ? giving up on netbooks ?

Netbooks were born for children. But had a future for enterprise applications because of HDTV(broadcasting news or training film) 16:9 video format(DVD player format). So, Asus sold more XP(sp3). But for individuals, dual boot with Ubuntu maybe a choice, until Firefox shot itself in the foot(not flash9 compatible).

In the comment titled “Join MS”, Abe from Linux Today writes:

Those who forget history are bound to repeat it.

It should be widely known by now. No matter why, when and where, join MS and you will be dead.

Those who ignore the warnings can’t blame but themselves.

We have a detailed list of companies that lost their GNU/Linux focus after signing Microsoft deals. Xandros of one of those companies. It’s "Microsoft's touch of death". █

“I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense — I deserve it.”

–Be’s CEO Jean-Louis Gassée

Summary: News about SUSE, about Xandros and about Samsung, all of which pay Microsoft for Linux

THIS week was all about OpenSUSE and there was little to see elsewhere at Novell. Nonetheless, it turns out that Paul Cutler from GNOME received some financial help from Novell.

Thanks to Novell and Google’s sponsorship, nine of us are converging in Google’s Chicago office for two days.

SUSE Studio was mentioned again by Tux Radar, which generally likes (and has always liked, even under the “Linux Format” banner) the OpenSUSE/SuSE distribution.

Novell recently launched SUSE Studio, a service that enables you to create OpenSUSE respins from any browser. At the time we went to press this service was so exclusive it was strictly invite-only, though you could request an invitation via www.susestudio.com.

Ross Chevalier wrote about the SUSE-based OES 2 and more use of SLES can be seen in this new article.

Boardsports, be it snow, skate, or surf, is a multi-million dollar industry, populated with large manufacturers and cottage shops, all trying to get a piece of these sports’ action. With such competition in place, particularly when the current economic climate is discouraging discretionary spending on boarding equipment, it’s no small feat to reduce part of an IT budget by 80 percent.

That’s exactly what happened when The Burton Corporation shifted its SAP-related infrastructure from HP-UX on proprietary big iron to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) on commodity boxes last year.

The Indian press — and one publication in particular — did something interesting. It is suspicious that they just publish three Novell case studies out of the blue (without any for other companies to be covered), namely:

i. Clustering on SUSE Linux

HRI employs SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to power its supercomputing clusters, enabling globally recognized research projects in cosmology, high-energy physics and condensed matter physics, writes Nivedan Prakash

ii. Managing data center migration

Gupta added that PlateSpin Migrate enabled them to take snapshots of their systems and move them across a 155 Mbps line to new hardware in the new facility, “We moved each server during weekends on a four-week cycle, preparing the target platform and then using PlateSpin Migrate to migrate the data. The whole migration was completed within six months, with no significant disruption to users.”

iii. Moving towards an improved desktop environment

The migration from Microsoft Windows to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop at ING Life, India has generated considerable cost savings for the company. The company has also gained a faster and more stable working environment.

It’s like 3 Novell adverts that are labeled “casestudy”. Here is another new case of Novell:

The demand for such tools has attracted the attention of a variety of vendors, including BeyondTrust, which last month unveiled what it termed the first first privileged account management product for heterogeneous IT environments, along with CA, Quest Software and Novell.

Xandros

Xandros, which consumed Linspire and Scalix, is generally very quiet these days, but some press releases are still floating about without getting attention from reporters. Corel is said to be close to being bought.

[Xandros] BridgeWays Partner Inframon Brings Cross – Platform System Center Services to the United Kingdom

ASUS and Xandros appear in conjunction again:

If the machine does have an ARM processor, it also won’t be able to run Windows XP or Windows 7, although it’s not clear if it will run Google Android, Google Chrome or a Linux distribution such as Xandros, Ubuntu, or Moblin.

Samsung

Another Microsoft-encumbered distribution which we wrote about this week would be Bada, and it’s still appearing in some places.

Samsung’s first Bada-powered device has been leaked in photo form – it would appear to be a style-conscious touchscreen device

[...]

Following on from the widespread adoption of the Android operating system, several smartphone players are branching out into alternate, open source interfaces, as we saw with the Vodafone 360 H1 – a phone also made by Samsung.

Samsung pays Microsoft for Linux. All too troublesome to be accepted. █

Summary: Two companies that pay Microsoft for Linux remain close to Microsoft and fail to attract positive attention

EARLIER this week we wrote about Xandros and Samsung growing even closer to Microsoft. We now find that Xandros will attend Microsoft’s TechEd Show, as further explained here:

BridgeWays, a division of Xandros, today announced a major expansion of its line of cross-platform System Center monitoring to Apache Tomcat, Oracle Enterprise, IBM DB2 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The new management packs come in response to customer demands to extend the BridgeWays single-console monitoring for the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager to these popular enterprise applications on Windows, Linux, and Unix. These new BridgeWays arrivals join previously released management packs for Oracle Database, MySQL Database, Apache HTTP Server, JBoss Application Server, and VMware ESX/ESXi. The new BridgeWays management packs will be on display at the Microsoft TechEd show, Berlin, November 9-13.

Scalix (Xandros) markets itself as a GNU/Linux-based substitute for Exchange, but it says almost nothing about being a cash cow to Microsoft, via the signing of software patent deals. BridgeWays is an even more serious case of serving Microsoft.

We previously wrote about what Samsung’s patent deal with Microsoft may mean to Android [1, 2]. This might not be much of an issue given that Samsung’s phone appears like a failure, at least based on The Register which shows that it’s a problem with Samsung’s phone, not Android itself. From a new review of the Samsung Galaxy i7500:

Samsung’s first Android phone is something of a disappointment. It’s not outrageously bad, but there just seem to be too many missed opportunities and decision fumbles for it to really win us over. While other manufacturers are using Android’s flexibility to give their devices a unique stamp, Samsung appears to have simply rushed out a me-too handset without taking the time to put much effort into it.

We’ll be interested to see the next Android device that comes off the Samsung production line, but this one doesn’t really deliver the goods just yet.

This is good news. Android in its own right is good, but it will not sell well when implemented by Samsung, which pays Microsoft for the use of Linux anyway. █

Summary: Companies that screw Free software by paying Microsoft for unnamed software patents grow even closer to Microsoft

Samsung Electronics, one of the companies that help Microsoft put a patent tax (and price tag) on Linux [1, 2, 3], is growing closer to Microsoft. From The Inquirer:

Microsoft and Samsung agree to help each other

[...]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Samsung Electronics CEO Yoon-Woo Lee met and decided to work together to encourage users to buy more environmentally friendly PCs.

It is difficult to boycott Samsung because many computer components are made by it (even if there is no visible sign of branding). This company is probably larger in terms of staff size than all the software giants in the United States combined.

There are some Samsung products that are easy to boycott nonetheless. We recently gave Samsung's LiMo phones as an example. It turns out that some of these will be “rebadged” as Vodafone, according to the following:

Made by Samsung but rebadged as a Vodafone 360 mobile, the H1 has a 3.5-inch OLED screen, 16GB of storage, Wi-Fi, and a 5.0-megapixel camera.

The Vodafone 360 is a phone to boycott because the Linux inside it provides means by which Microsoft applies software patents to Linux. Samsung is said to have shipped 60.2 million handsets this quarter, so such patent tax does add up and it is dangerous as a precedence. There is newer information here and here, but no publication bothers to mention Samsung’s strong relationship with Microsoft and their patent deal. The following article describes it all just as “Linux”, we call it “Ballnux”

Linux is Here, the Vodafone 360 H1

Linux Mobile is one of the underdogs of mobile operating systems. Playing practically the same role they have with desktop computers, Linux systems tend to play more towards function and practicality over style and form. This is usually compensated by skinning and other customization options. With mobile phones, their position is a little more accepted than with computers. Since mobile applications are easily ported to other platforms, the Linux mobile operating system does not share the same problem as Linux based computers; direct compatibility with a lot of programs.

We happen to find a lot of the same coming from Xandros. For the uninitiated, Xandros signed a Novell-like patent deal with Microsoft back in 2007 and it also bought Scalix, which pays Microsoft for ActiveSync software patents. Scalix claims to be expanding this dangerous patent tax under the guise/flag of “Linux” and the Xandros relationship with ASUS is not over yet.

Xandros today announced that key staff will host a session on “Enhanced Moblin for the Asus Eee PC: Custom Dual-Mode Netbook Experience” at the Moblin Roadshow, The Westin Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan, October 29, 2009.

Based on the following press release (also here), Xandros is overlapping Microsoft and its ecosystem.

Microsoft Gold Partner Infront Delivers BridgeWays Cross-Platform System Center Solutions in North America

BridgeWays, a division of Xandros Inc., today announced an agreement with Infront Consulting Group to deliver cross-platform management packs, training, and consulting services to Microsoft Systems Center customers in North America with mixed software and hardware environments.

It is not a coincidence that near allies of Microsoft were the ones to sell Linux out. It is not something that came after the patent deals had been signed. In other words, fortunately enough, companies that were never truly loyal to Free software have already shown where they stand. Now is the time to avoid these companies and explain to them why they are rejected. By participating in GNU/Linux they actually did more harm than good — probably more harm than if they had never come to GNU/Linux in the first place. █

Summary: Microsoft’s monopoly abuse with ActiveSync and Live@Edu is revisited; troubling sights in India encourage preventive action — urgently

ON THE FACE of it, Microsoft still (ab)uses its monopoly in order to charge competitors for mail and collaboration APIs, the latest example being Apple customers, not just Google, Scalix/Xandros, and others to whom software patents are seen as acceptable.

The Live@Edu scam is another case of Microsoft abuse in mail and collaboration. This one relies on bribes (or “incentives”) and ignorance (or selfishness). Recently we gave some examples in [1, 2, 3, 4]. Microsoft actually competes very viciously with Google in this area, but we lack evidence to suggest that Google offers bribes like Microsoft does. Watch the hypocrisy of Microsoft, which is now accusing Google of being monopolistic. We should really all just lean on Microsoft to save us from all those evil monopolists. Really. Microsoft to the rescue!

Here is a new account of what Microsoft achieves with Live@Edu:

It’s an interesting approach, and both companies are providing their products free for a reason. Perhaps now this will shed some light on the internal processes both Microsoft and Google take into account when offering free services or products.

What do you think? Ethical? Unethical? Good business practice or doomed to bite them in the arse?

Microsoft — unlike Google — has another methodology for spreading Live@Edu through a separate type of bribes. Microsoft is recruiting young people whom it calls MSPs (Microsoft Student Partners). They are hired ‘shills’ for Microsoft, whom Microsoft feeds with gifts, as we showed before. Microsoft is doing a lot of this in India these days. It is a modern, digital form of colonisation with the help of people who betray their country(‘s autonomy).

The Times of India had this coverage some days ago. It is very superficial and promotional, but it serves to show that Microsoft has not changed its ways.

To acquaint information and technology students with latest tools and software technology, Microsoft Student Partners (MSP) has launched a state-wide educative programme. The programme’s first phase kick-started with a workshop at Navrachana University (NU) here on Sunday.

“This is our first programme of the state-wide plan wherein we will cover 10 universities in Gujarat, including MS University. We are also looking to promote collaboration between universities and Microsoft through two major programmes – MSDN Academic Alliance and Live@Edu,” said Prakhar Agarwal, MSP programme head in Gujarat.

This is ridiculous. Universities can trivially host their own mail using Free software, not Fog Computing. Whether knowingly or not, those promoting such programmes are not just promoting multi-nationals but they also help turn their peers into slaves of a single foreign company that probably has the most appalling track record in its field. Witness who else is helping Microsoft in India at the moment. It’s Microsoft's old shill, TCS. Along with (potentially) tens of thousands of ‘charities’ that were seemingly offered gentle bribes from Microsoft, TCS lobbied for OOXML. And now:

IT outsourcing firm Tata Consultancy Services has entered into an alliance with Microsoft India to launch a virtualisation Center of Excellence (CoE) in Chennai.

That, together with EDGI, should be sufficient reason to kick Microsoft out of India, just as the British were once forced out. Microsoft exploits India, but it pays/bribes enough Indian people to carry on serving Microsoft’s agenda in the country. As the highly-regarded Professor Deepak Phatak put it last year, “This hypothetical counter complaint shows Microsoft as working at national and International forums to maintain and enhance its monopoly in global markets, and as attempting to ensure its monopoly strangle-hold on Indian desktop Market. It also paints INFOSYS, TCS, WIPRO and NASSCOM as willfully helping Microsoft in this evil design, and thus acting grossly against Indian National interests.” █

“The alliance uses Microsoft technologies instead of challenging Gates in his own game. Wipro is just a servant of Microsoft facilitating Indian cyber slavery under the American corporate banners.”

–India Daily

Summary: Overview encompassing distributions that pay Microsoft

ONE notable success story that a few SUSE sites raved about is revealed by this report about the Australian Defence Force .

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has revealed its latest flight simulator runs on Suse Linux-based clusters of Opteron servers and uses an open source graphics platform.

There was close to nothing apart from that. CIOL was parroting last week’s press release about SUSE appliances and the de facto Microsoft press published some opinion about it. Looking at the “Studio” side of things, OpenSUSE-LXDE has just been built thanks to it.

After some develop and tests i finally completed the openSUSE-LXDE live installable iso based on openSUSE 11.1 made with SUSE-STUDIO.

Novell’s attempt to pinch customers from Red Hat is shown in two new whitepapers, both of which sponsored by Novell.

There will be some news next week because Microsoft intends to make a lot of noise about “interoperability”.

The inauguration of the French Interop Lab will take place in the presence of players, including Bull, Citrix, Novell, Red Hat, HP, Sun and VLMWare, who will adress the theme of interoperability during a round table discussion entitled “Interoperability: client reality or marketing approach?” Plans for the French lab were first announced at the end of last year by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

In relation to thin clients, Novell was quoted in this press release from Wyse.

“We’ve seen a great deal of interest from companies looking to lower the overall TCO of their computing infrastructures, but without making sacrifices to quality or end user experience,” said Guy Lunardi, director of Client Preloads at Novell. “By repurposing PCs into thin clients, Project Borg leverages Linux to help to reduce costs while simplifying the move to VDI.”

Xandros

Qualcomm’s relationship with Xandros is mentioned right here, with related reports in other languages such as Russian (and in German). The Scalix part of Xandros was mentioned in this new press release.

Today Sentegrity the exclusive distributor of Xandros Scalix in Latin America announced a new partner in the region. Iguanahosting a leader in providing business services including email and collaboration services to individuals, small, medium and large enterprise business in Venezuela is now offering Scalix exclusively to its clients.

The BridgeWays component of Xandros had a press release about it also.

BridgeWays, a division of Xandros, today launched a new Global Partner Program to bring cross-platform business opportunities to Microsoft System Center solution providers. The new program enables BridgeWays partners to extend single console management of business critical applications to thousands of current System Center customers that also deploy non-Microsoft virtualization, database, application, web, and communication servers on Windows, Linux, and Unix.

Overall, not much has happened. █

Summary: A glimpse at distributors who pay Microsoft for GNU/Linux

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

FOR SUSE it has been an exceptionally quiet week, but SUSE Studio still generates a bit of a buzz and there are also reviews that are largely positive.

I just built my own Linux distribution through my browser. It can be ran as a Live CD or installed on your system. No, you did read that correctly. I actually used Firefox to build my own SUSE-based distro. Sometimes technology throws curveballs at us that are so unbelievable you’d have to read the statement several times to realize that you aren’t hallucinating. Do you think I’m writing a piece of science fiction? Enter SUSE Studio.

[...]

The Good:

* Amazing potential
* A ton of fun

The Bad:

* Builds take a while (that’s to be expected though)

Overall: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

There are other reviews that include more raves like this one. But Novell is behind it.

A Novell employee once told us that, in yesteryear when Novell’s marketing team were pushing brands faster than their coders were pushing software, Novell could easily have switched over to being a T-shirt manufacturing company. It seems their love of marketing hasn’t died out, because TuxRadar HQ recently accepted delivery of a suspicious box. Upon opening it, we found this:

Inside was a bag containing dozens of different parts, some plastic, others carefully cut foam. Next to that was a card pointing us towards the assembly instructions and, 10 minutes or so later, we were the, er, proud owners of one of these:

Great success! And even more fun than building a distro with SUSE Studio…

Further to last week's news about National Vision, there is this hyping up by Novell’s PR people and other SUSE promotion. Unrelated to this, there’s fun stuff such as this new video (“Hacking Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server”).

Novell’s PR department also brings back to life this old success story. Advocacy of SLE* can be found at the usual places and Novell’s own site has some too.

Another new video was nicely done and uploaded twice by Novell:

There is apparently no new business for SUSE though, just marketing and old stories.

Xandros

A mini review of Presto was published at IDG and the product was also mentioned in OStatic, which states:

We’ve written about Splashtop and instant-on compact Linux operating systems before. If you’re on a Windows PC or netbook, these can take you directly into a miniature operating system in about 15 seconds that can allow you to have access to IM, Skype, e-mail, the web and more. Presto is a free download you can get that takes you into a Xandros-based environment in seconds.

Some articles about renewed ASUS rumours mentioned Xandros, e.g.:

Asus may have pulled its experimental Google Android-powered netbook from sight after teasing journalists with it at Computex in June. But that doesn’t mean the company is sticking to Windows and Xandros Linux. Sascha at NetbookNews says a reliable source has told him that Asus will launch a netbook with Moblin Linux in October.

There are many similar posts in Russian and all sorts of other languages. There might be other ongoing attempts to put Xandros on small computers. From PC Pro:

Asus will deliver an Eee PC running the Moblin operating system in October, according to reports.

[...]

Though unconfirmed, the rumours aren’t too difficult to believe – Asus has long flirted with open source. Its original Eee PC ran a modified version of Xandros and its high-end motherboards are equipped with the Linux-based Splashtop “instant-on” OS. There were also reports it was ready to launch a netbook based on Android, though those have quietly fizzled out.

Moblin uses another variant of Ballnux, namely SUSE. There may as well be hidden patent tax. Also on Xandros (from an unrelated press release):

– Announced that Synchronoss has partnered with Xandros, the leader in providing seamless Windows-Linux interoperability and open source netbook software solutions. Together, the companies offer the first single-source solution to automate the activation and provisioning of netbook devices on 3G and 4G wireless networks.

Scalix was mentioned in a press release of its own.

Turbolinux

6 years before selling out to Microsoft, Turbolinux pondered an IPO. Here is a reminder of that.

Turbolinux (OSE :3777)
Having canceled its IPO in late 2001, Turbolinux eventually found its way to the stock market in September 2005 via an IPO on the Japanese Osaka Securities Exchange. Between those events, the Japanese Linux distributor was owned by Software Research Associates and then Livedoor. Turbolinux’s shares continue to be traded on the Osaka Securities Exchange.

Curiously, there has been no word about Manbo in ages. █

Summary: A glimpse at distributions from which Microsoft extracts revenue

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

For SLES and SLED it has been an idle week. When it comes to Zend’s PHP, SLES will gain better directory services support.

PHP specialist Zend has released a new version of Zend Framework, its open-source web application framework, with support for PHP 5.3 and directory services from Microsoft and Novell.

When it comes to configuration management in SUSE, that too may improve.

According to Alan Murray, vice president of product management at Novell, “Today’s data centers are heterogeneous environments with multiple masters and stakeholders, but in order for any organization to make decisions or analyze business performance these mixed environments need to work together simply and seamlessly. Novell is a strong supporter of the Configuration Management Database Federation standard, because it facilities the interoperability of data from multiple points of view. With a comprehensive view of the entire IT environment, administrators can utilize configuration data to streamline management tasks resolve issues and most importantly effectively manage the components in their IT infrastructure.”

Novell’s PR/Open Audio people have released this third part in a series of 4 which is titled “Open Source for America” and there is more about subscription management in SUSE:

Novell has released a new version of its Subscription Management Tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise 11. The Tool helps enterprises manage their SUSE Linux Enterprise updates while conforming with corporate firewall policy and regulatory compliance requirements. Integrated and synchronized with Novell Customer Center, the Subscription Management Tool is always updated, acts as a repository for all subscription information and delivers the benefits of centralized management.

The Var Guy mentions that potential relationship between Tech Data and Novell. He recently wrote about Tech Data pondering Free software and he hypothesises that it may have an impact on Red Hat.

Novell and Tech Data have inked a partnership to promote SUSE Linux and open source application appliances to VARs and channel partners. In some (but not all) ways, the partnership counters recent work by Red Hat and Synnex (co-founders of the Open Source Channel Alliance).

The Register has this webcast about Microsoft and Novell.

Regcast Join experts from The Register, Microsoft, Novell & Freeform Dynamics from 2pm BST today as they look at the benefits, costs and risks of proprietary, open source and hybrid environments – all in glorious interactive video.

[...]

# Novell and Microsoft working together

This pair continues to rely on that infamous patent deal, which has a negative impact on Lenovo’s GNU/Linux offerings.

Lenovo isn’t a household name when it comes to computers, but in business circles the company is well respected for its robust line of ThinkPad laptops (previously produced for IBM). Consequently, you won’t find Ubuntu or Mandriva on its IdeaPad netbooks – the only option is SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

Lenovo’s anti-Red Hat bias (or insistence on Microsoft tax) is one that we wrote about some weeks ago. As Matt Asay put it yesterday:

Microsoft may have been able to get Novell to “put a price on Linux” through intellectual property scare tactics, but it hasn’t worked for the market leaders, Red Hat and Canonical (Ubuntu). Nor has it worked for the leading hardware and software vendors that depend on Linux, e.g., IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc.

Incidentally, these same vendors make up a significant ecosystem around Linux, the very same ecosystem that Ballmer suggests is won’t form due to a lack of incentives. Apparently he didn’t talk to his closest partner, Intel, which is now the No. 2 contributor to the Linux kernel. I guess he didn’t realize that there’s a lot of money to be made around Linux, and it’s money that doesn’t have to be shared with Microsoft.

Another partner of Novell is IBM, which puts SUSE on the large majority of its mainframes. There is now a reduction in price.

IBM, Novell to slash Linux prices for mainframes

[...]

With System z mainframe revenues down 39 per cent – and MIPS mainframe capacity shipments off 20 percent in the second quarter – IBM is keen on boosting mainframe sales. And it wants to use Linux as a lever.

Commercial Linux distributor Novell has a more than 80 per cent share of Linux revenues on IBM’s mainframe platform. The company has been shipping its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 since the end of March, and it wants to get more mainframe shops to add SLES 11 to Integrated Facility for Linux engines.

Xandros

There was very little to see here this week. There was a press release about eApps, which relates to Scalix. It says:

eApps Hosting announced the launch of an Outlook compatible Enterprise Class Email hosting service using the award winning Scalix Email server. Scalix is known to be the most field-proven Linux-based Email, calendaring and messaging software with thousands of corporate customers in 65 countries, more than one million mailboxes deployed, 6,000 active community members and 190,000 downloads.

Presto is still mentioned in the news on occasions.

It has been developed by Xandros, which developed the basic software used to start up the Asus Eee mini PC quickly. But Xandros hasn’t conjured up something completely new with Presto.

All in all, nothing significant could be found. █

Summary: SUSE news and videos from the past two weeks

IT HAS BEEN a quiet fortnight from a business perspective. It’s a universal thing. Going back to Computex 2009, here is a new video of Novell’s Guy Lunardi.

Novell’s financial results continue to be iffy and Red Hat’s results lead to more punditry at Jupitermedia.

You’ve got to be big to compete with Microsoft, and it’s unlikely that Novell, maker of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, is up to the task. Not least because it relies on Microsoft’s generosity in subsidizing SLES. A company the size of Oracle/Sun might be able to go toe to toe with Redmond, but Red Hat certainly can’t.

At an application level, Double-Take posts this press release where SLES gets an almost preferential degree of support.

Double-Take Software will add support for the recently released Novell SLES 11 in its next Double-Take for Linux service pack.

Here is a new blog post about SLES 11 on System p.

The highlight of the evening is a walkthrough and demo of installing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 on IBM System p (POWER) by Mike Veltman, our SUSE meetup lead and our talent from Holland.

Speaking of IBM, Novell is mentioned very briefly in this article which got titled “Judge says IBM dude gets the Dell (job).”

(Maybe Johnson could explain that whole IBM-Sun Microsystems dance to us if he has a moment? Or how many times IBM has thought about buying SAP or Red Hat or Novell?)

There is also this about IBM and Novell:

At the hardware layer, IBM’s Systems and Technology Group offers a range of server platforms, powered by operating systems that in many cases are promoted externally rather than by IBM. Examples include Linux (promoted by the Linux community, the open source movement, Red Hat and Novell), AIX (effectively promoted by the Unix community as well as by IBM), and Windows, promoted strongly by Microsoft.

Turning over to YouTube, some old Novell videos are being added to it. These include this SLE* 10 clip.

OES2 uses SUSE now and the following video has just been put in YouTube too.

Looking at some SUSE deployments, here is a press release with a new example.

Low-cost, energy-efficient Userful Multiplier desktops running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop from Novell have transformed the way SASSA officials capture and process social grant applications in rural South Africa.

Two new articles from Brian Proffitt (about Novell clients) have also been published. The first is about hospitals where there is an element of SLED.

Even as health care costs grow, hospitals and health care centers are constantly looking for ways to cut operating expenses. The cynical would say this is just to increase their profit margins, but that is not always the case. Some hospitals need to cut back to avoid layoffs, or closing a cutting-edge facility, or just survive in a world where patients who have insurance can often pick and choose which hospital they are admitted, and the patients who don’t may not be able to foot their own medical bills in a timely manner.

[...]

As you might suspect from the players involved, this is a virtualized Linux solution. Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) is the front-end desktop environment for the 65 machines, which NoMachine’s technology providing the remote and encrypted access. IBM provided the System x3650 server for the back-end, and consulted on the design of the system with GAMC’s staff.

This is also covered in ITWire.

The system combines NoMachine’s NX remote access and virtualisation software, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and an IBM System x3650 server.

There is also a Red Hat component to this batch of news:

Glendale Adventist Medical Center has successfully installed SUSE Linux-based thin clients in 65 rooms, using technology from IBM, NoMachine, and Novell, say the companies. Meanwhile, Midland Memorial Hospital is touting cost savings from deploying Red Hat Linux-based OpenVista electronic health record software, says Forbes.

Xandros is part of this whole bundle, which demonstrates a mixture of many GNU/Linux distributions.

In the middle sits NoMachine’s NX remote access technology. NX, which is bundled with Xandros server, reduces the bandwidth required to run X Window applications over a network by placing caching proxy servers at either end of the connection.

This story is already used as somewhat of a case study and here is the press release which Novell’s PR drones seem rather excited about.

A second IBM customer, Glendale Adventist Medical Center in Glendale, Calif., has installed 65 thin-client monitors and keyboards in hospital rooms, allowing patients to check email and research their medical conditions from their bedsides. The monitors run NoMachine NX virtual desktops on Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise, with no risk to patient privacy because all the data is stored centrally on IBM system x3650 servers, Haikes said. Glendale Adventist plans to expand the virtual desktops to clinicians and employees in the future.

The second article from Brian Proffitt is about Novell and Sesame Street. This is very old news [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], which leads to reasonable suspicion that Proffitt's encounter with OpenSUSE's community manager could have played a persuasive role.

Sesame Workshop is a non-profit organization with has 40 years worth of digital media over 20 programs distributed to over 120 countries working with over 1000 international partners, almost 50 web sites with manage, and a highly mobile workforce using leased equipment around the world.

Moving on the Novell’s executive ranks, John Dragoon publishes this article in the pro-big business press (Forbes), where company executives are routinely treated like guest journalists — people to be blindly admired. Dragoon uses his article to promote Novell (he is a marketing guy after all). For example:

Demand Generation. Our sales teams and partners need leads. A recent IDC study indicated that it is taking 50% to 100% more leads to generate the same revenue as two years ago. Fortunately, at Novell, we invested in technology that gives us a powerful line of sight between marketing cause and sales impact. That said, our experience tells us that we must generate more opportunities to grow. Business units and sales groups should be aligned to achieve these new targets.

John Dragoon also wrote about Chrome OS. It’s Dragoon’s first blog post in a very long time. Watch how the pro-Microsoft Eric Lai uses an audience comprising Google’s Chrome OS competitors to describe it almost as a negative thing with a suggestive trollish headline (followed by a question mark of course): “Does Google Chrome OS further fragment Linux landscape?”

Here is Novell’s response

Justin Steinman, vice president of solution and product marketing for Novell Inc., maker of Suse Linux and recent supporter of Moblin for netbooks: “Let’s be clear, Google has Microsoft in the cross-hairs with this announcement. Novell is not concerned with Moblin v2.0 being overshadowed by Chrome OS…. [As for creating fragmentation], this is not really a problem. The vast majority of Linux distributions are using standard Linux kernels, which illustrates very well how mature the Linux kernel has become. A few exceptions exist like Google Android, amongst others. The availability of choice promotes open source in a global fashion. The general market has been using Linux pervasively for a long time now. Novell is convinced the market is ready for an alternative desktop now.”

Jeff Jaffe writes about Moblin ahead of Google’s overblown announcement.

In my last posting, I outlined the significance of cloud computing and Novell’s architecture to provide infrastructure for the cloud. Herein I will provide some detail for the piece called connecting to the cloud via devices enabled by Moblin.

Looking at YouTube again, there is this curious Novell account which at least includes a disclosure:

Making IT Work As One: Novell expert interviews, partnerships, and success stories.
Country: United States
Website: http://www.novell.com

The video in question is described as: “John Dragoon, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer of Novell, Inc. and Dr. Michael Maginn, Management Consultant and author of “Effective Teamwork: Managing in Changing Times and Making Teams Work” analyze the dynamic between business teams, emerging technologies and what it takes to effectively bring them together.”

Here is the video.

Novell’s PR people are promoting it.

Novell has just kicked off its “Getting to One” 10-minute Webcast series. These short Webcasts are designed to offer a unique perspective on some of the key issues and challenges that the IT industry faces today.

Xandros

ASUS with Xandros on EEE PCs gets mentioned in several articles that mostly parrot the smears/revisionism one gets when Microsoft has so much power over the computer press. There may be some exceptions, but they become rarer as history gets rewritten and old articles ‘rot’ in the Web.

Scalix, which is part of Xandros, got a mention in a couple of places as well:

i. Parallels Announces First EMEA Partner Roadshow — Delivers Education, Business Opportunities and Valuable Connections to Partners

• Business Opportunities — Exclusive insights from leading industry sponsors including: VeriSign, Red Hat, Internet X, OpenSRS, Unison, Backupagent, Scalix/Xandros, Bobcares, Epages, and Commtouch. Parallels will help partners align their business with the Parallels product line-up and create specific sales plans focused on boosting revenue.

ii. Mexican email hosting firm provides premium services thru the use of Scalix Hosting Edition

James Largotta, General Manager of Xandros parent company of Scalix in the region had this to say; “Internet Networks represents a new era in offerings to end users. The services that firms like Internet Networks provides are vital to the day to day operation of any business and firms like Internet Networks are able to provide their clients best of class products like Scalix and allow these clients to focus their attention on their core expertise.”

This is now much news for a period of 2 weeks, but it’s summer after all. █

Summary: A few bits and pieces about SLES, SLED, Novell’s performance, Xandros and Scalix

THERE WAS almost nothing about SLES and SLED in the past week’s news. Here is just a boring Novell attraction which was uploaded to YouTube some days ago, having been captured in Computex not so long ago.

On the server side, SLES was mentioned very briefly by Timothy Prickett Morgan at IT Jungle. The article is really about IBM.

It is safe to assume that bigger Power-based CloudBurst iron will get bigger SAN disks behind it, and that the PowerVM hypervisor and the Virtual I/O Server will play big roles in the Power-based CloudBurst setups. And IBM has to support its own i 6.1 and AIX 6.1 operating system as well as Red Hat and Novell Linuxes on the power iron, too.

And here is another new one which mentions NetWare.

There are some smaller mainframes running IBM’s z/OS, VSE, or VM operating systems, Unisys sells some relatively small MCP and OS2200 mainframes, and there’s still NetWare of a sort from Novell that you might consider proprietary (it is basically NetWare services running atop Linux at this point). Bull even has an emulation layer that allows GCOS 7 and GCOS 8 applications to run on its Itanium-based Novascale systems running Linux.

On the desktop side, SLED 11 being an option on the H-P Mini 5101 earned it some coverage.

The Mini 5101 will still weigh about 2.6 pounds, and buyers will have their pick of Windows Vista, XP Home or Professional, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, or FreeDOS—if they want to install their own version of Linux.

Another new possibility for SLED:

Low-cost, energy-efficient Userful Multiplier desktops running on Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop have transformed the way SASSA officials capture and process social grant applications in rural South Africa.

Novell and Red Hat are routinely mentioned as the only front runners of GNU/Linux and here is a new example.

Running your favorite flavor of the Linux operating system, such as Red Hat’s (NYSE: RHT) Fedora or Novell’s (Nasdaq: NOVL) SuSE Linux, a SheevaPlug system simply plugs in to a power outlet and an Ethernet cable, with optional USB accessories like external hard drives.

In light of the strong results from Red Hat, we also found Novell mentioned as the company in Red Hat’s shadow. For example:

i. Red Hat: Four Times Novell’s Open Source Revenue?

When Red Hat announced first quarter results on June 24, The VAR Guy spotted a rather interesting detail: Red Hat’s quarterly open source revenues are nearly four times larger than its closest Linux rival, Novell.

[...]

Meanwhile, Novell’s legacy business continues to shrink but newer businesses like SUSE Linux, identity management, security and data center administration offer promising growth. But here’s the problem: Those individual Novell products don’t always create pull for one another, The VAR Guy believes.

ii. Red Hat: Bad economy is good for open source

With profit and revenue up, Red Hat continues to impress, especially as it’s not dependent on a competitor for its revenue, which remains the Achilles’ heel in Novell’s otherwise bright earnings reports.

iii. Red Hat Edges Past Q1 Views, Sees Q2 In Line With Estimates

However, Novell (NasdaqGS:NOVL – News) is another profit-minded open source software company that’s been coming on stronger lately, says Aaron Schwartz of Ladenburg Thalmann. Such progress is due in part to the firm’s partnership with Microsoft (NasdaqGS:MSFT – News).

The damage done to Novell’s reputation is unmeasurable though. And another last one:

iv. Red Hat: Best Stock In Best Sector

If you’re not familiar with Red Hat, it’s the world’s biggest provider of Linux software. It also sells maintenance contracts which includes upgrades, help-desk support and bug fixes. Rivals include Novell and Microsoft.

It is worth adding that the Indian press was the only one to truly refute reports about Novell’s plan to sell assets.

Dana Russell, senior vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) of Novell, said his company would be interested in making acquisition in the high-growth businesses like identity security and compliance management software, data centre tools and open source software.

Asay repeats this message and someone in the OpenSUSE forums brings up the ludicrous suggestion that Novell may have an interest in buying Mandriva. Nothing good would come out of it, just duplication.

Xandros and SUSE are both mentioned in this new article about Moblin development in China and Taiwan, to which Novell is offshoring.

A number of Linux software makers have already jumped on board with Moblin. Around 15 companies showed off their own versions of Moblin early this month at the Computex Taipei 2009 computer show, including Novell with its SUSE Moblin, as well as Red Flag, Xandros, Linpus and Wind River Systems, which has agreed to be bought by Intel.

Xandros

Sys-con, which supported SCO for the most part, suddenly gives a special room for Xandros, the company which serves Microsoft's anti-Linux agenda. Xandros is also mentioned in the context of sub-notebooks in assorted Web sites, including:

i. Can Asus EEE Netbooks become mainstream?

In continuing the series on Asus Netbooks, I’d like to consider whether Asus can make their product more mainstream, especially as it pertains to U.S. markets.

[...]

1)The default distribution of Linux on the Asus models (Xandros) is clunky and not the best choice. For example, it’s difficult to connect to Wi-Fi using WPA in Xandros. I don’t know of too many people who have WEP security. Instead, Asus should consider using a Linux version like Unbuntu on it’s systems.

ii. How to add an instant-on OS to your Windows PC

Fortunately, help is at hand with Xandros Presto. This instant-on OS installs directly from Windows and offers many of the features as its hardware-embedded competition. In timed tests, Windows Vista took almost two minutes to boot, whereas Presto took a miraculous 20 seconds.

There is also some minor news about Scalix, which is part of Xandros.

Scalix Announces Beta Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server

[...]

1)The default distribution of Linux on the Asus models (Xandros) is clunky and not the best choice. For example, it’s difficult to connect to Wi-Fi using WPA in Xandros. I don’t know of too many people who have WEP security. Instead, Asus should consider using a Linux version like Unbuntu on it’s systems.

Quiet week overall. Light in terms of actual changes. █

Summary: Assorted news about GNU/Linux that funds Microsoft

SLES

There are many articles which mention SUSE, but none that are actually about SUSE, with only a few exceptions. The following is a press release about SLES on System z.

Centrify Corporation, the leading provider of Microsoft Active Directory-based, identity and access management and auditing solutions for non-Microsoft platforms, today announced the availability of Centrify Suite 2008 for Linux on IBM System z. The first Linux supported as a guest OS is SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z. With Centrify Suite, enterprises can easily secure the hundreds to thousands of Linux servers that a single mainframe can host by leveraging their existing Active Directory infrastructure and user accounts. The Centrify Suite also allows IT administrators to integrate all other Linux, UNIX and Mac systems in an enterprise within Active Directory to provide centralized identity management, access control, privilege management and auditing of all non-Windows platforms.

It’s also here and in this sloppy/lazy rewrite of the press release.

Centrify says it also specializes in providing Microsoft (News – Alert) Active Directory-based, and identity, access management and auditing solutions for non-Microsoft platforms, and claims that Novell’s (the developer of SUSE Linux) response was positive about this latest application development. “Novell (News – Alert) is pleased that Centrify Suite is now certified on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z,” said Kevin M. Pereau, Director, Independent Software Vendor Ecosystems at Novell. “In today’s economy, customers are looking for freedom of choice and lower total cost of ownership and by certifying Centrify Suite on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z, Centrify is offering its customers both.”

Another article about IBM servers (Blades) mentions SLES somewhere among the lines:

(IBM ran the test with Novell’s SUSE Linux, but priced it with AIX, which is a bit of a no-no.) The JS43 was rated at 219 on the test, almost precisely twice the performance as the JS23 (as you would expect considering it is just two JS23s snapped together), and cost a little more than twice as much at $23,756 for a configuration with one disk and 64 GB of memory, or just over $108 per unit of performance.

Novell’s PR people spoke about Fog Computing, which they are trying to saturate with SLES.

With Novell’s position in core infrastructure, Novell intends to play a major role in cloud computing. Several technology choices for the cloud are favorable to Novell— Linux is the favored operating system used by cloud providers; XEN—which we have discussed often— is the favored virtualization technique. Moreover, Novell’s strength in technology areas such as management and security is relevant.

From Fog Computing we move on to “Liquid Computing” — an article which happens to mention Novell as a partner.

Liquid Computing, which formed in 2003, has built up an ecosystem of partners around its technology. For example, LiquidIQ supports Microsoft Windows Server 2008, the Hyper-V hypervisor and Microsoft System Center management capabilities. Other partners include VMware, Oracle, NetApp and Novell, for enterprise Linux support.

Manufacturing Computer Solutions wrote about Novell’s latest love fest with Microsoft and so did VNUNet and Heise. We wrote about this some days ago.

Joe the Var Guy neglects to see Novell's problems, so instead he writes about Novell in a very positive tone, concentrating on just a tiny portion of the company’s overall business.

Of course, The VAR Guy has graciously danced around some conspiracy theories suggesting the Microsoft-Novell relationship represents the bulk of Novell’s Linux sales growth. At this point, The VAR Guy doesn’t believe the alleged conspiracy… SUSE Linux is selling because customers want it, not because Microsoft is buying it.

First of all, it’s not a “conspiracy”, it is a fact. And Novell’s Linux numbers are fudged, by its own admission. Blind trust is not a quality.

The above is not correct. Novell signed no major deals recently (again, by its own admission) and the one bragging about SUSE vouchers is Microsoft, not Novell. Microsoft wants to flood the GNU/Linux market with patent royalties covering imaginary things.

Novell’s SLES was also mentioned in the following:

i. Dell grows Intel ‘Nehalem EP’ iron

The PowerEdge R410 can have Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 as well as Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 and Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 5.2 installed at the Dell factory. SLES 11, RHEL 4.7 and 5.3, and Windows Server 2003 are not pre-installed, but can be bought with the box. HPC customers can get Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008 or RHEL 5 for HPC preinstalled if they are building clusters.

ii. Citrix XenServer 5.5 released

Citrix has released version 5.5 of its XenServer virtualisation software. New features in this release include the optional ability to connect to Microsoft’s Active Directory and the support of new host systems, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.3, Debian “Lenny” 5.0 and Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 (SLES).

No appearances of SLED or SLERT this week, so on we move to Xandros.

Xandros

Scalix, which is now part of Xandros, issued this press release about ActiveSync support.

Scalix ActiveSync 1.0 provides push email as well as wireless calendar and contact synchronization. It supports a huge variety of mobile devices supporting the ActiveSync industry standard including Apple’s iPhone, Microsoft Windows Mobile-based devices, and Symbian-based phones, such as Nokia’s E- and N-Series.

This can also be found here with more details in Heise and in Ziff Davis/eWeek.

The add-on for Scalix Server is implemented as a Java-based Web application and no additional software is required for mobile devices that already support ActiveSync.

Xandros-owned email and groupware vendor Scalix released Scalix ActiveSync 1.0, a push email and synchronization add-on to Scalix Server that implements Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol for wireless message synchronization. Scalix also released Scalix Server 11.4.4, touted for its over 200 improvements.

Heise mentioned Xandros also in the context of Moblin/sub-notebooks and so did ZDNet.

Each zone displays a running application. The Moblin user interface is impressive and unlike any desktop Linux environment, but it does maintain a good level of compatibility, hence the range of Moblin editions announced by Canonical, Xandros, Novell and others.

PC makers also put their own stamp on this with interfaces such as HP’s Mi (Mobile Internet) on its Mini netbooks. At Computex, I even saw a 10-inch smartbook from Pegatron, a contract manufacturer, with a Freescale ARM chip running Xandros Linux with a Windows XP “look-a-like” user interface.

This new page explains how to recover Xandros (on Eee PC) and this one provides a set of tips for it.

Using the “custom” partition choice at the beginning of Xandros, make the two partitions, the 1st (for XP)- as FAT32 & the second as ReiserFS for Xandros.

All in all, it has been quiet week for vendors that signed patent deals with Microsoft. █

Summary: Another glance at H-P’s embrace of SLED 11; other notable news about SUSE and Xandros

SLED

SOME days ago we commented on H-P's support of SLED. Further to that, all the following items mention Novell and SLED in the same context:

• HP Targets SMBs With Low-Cost Laptop Line
• HP Unwraps Notebooks Aimed at Small Businesses
• HP’s ProBook series of laptops ‘inspired by minimalism’
• HP Unveils Low-Cost Business Laptops
• HP offers Linux on new ProBook business laptops
• HP unveils ProBook s-series laptops for the businessperson who needs a bit more power
• Hewlett-Packard Launches Low-Cost Laptop
• Blending Business Chic With Affordability, HP Unveils HP ProBook Notebook PC Line
• HP Rolls Out New ProBook Notebooks
• HP Launches ProBook with Linux Pre-Installed
• HP Unveils ProBook, New Line of Biz Laptops

IDG reviewed SLED 11 and had some good words to share.

SLED’s dual listing of certain applications in both the YaST resource management window and in the Control Panel had us scratching our heads on what to pick out of the many open source applications included with the bundle. This confusion extends to having Hardware>Control Center choices duplicated as Network Devices under YaST as well. There’s no real harm in this double listing, it’s just confusing.

SLED 11 was also reviewed by IT Pro, which gave it high marks.

The answer to the question of whether you could eliminate Windows on your desktop clients and replace them with SLED 11 is yes. There are very few remaining issues that will prevent SLED working with an existing Windows/Active Directory infrastructure. If your desktop systems are purely used for standard administration and Microsoft Office tasks, SLED 11 will do it, albeit at the potential cost of grumbling employees. For any worker with specific non-Office application requirements it’s more difficult of course, but SLED 11 is a good move along the road to complete interoperability.

SLES

On the server side, SUSE was not mentioned so much, but the following articles about ‘clouds’ showed IBM’s role in spreading SLES:

i. Amazon EC2 Offers IBM Apps by the Hour

Amazon’s Thursday announcement follows a February announcement of a partnership between Amazon and IBM to provide software developers pay-as-you-go access to development and production versions of IBM Information Management database servers, IBM Lotus content management, and IBM WebSphere portal, as well as middleware products, all running on Novell’s SUSE Linux on Amazon EC2.

From Timothy Prickett Morgan:

ii. IBM slips Power6+ into racks, blades

IBM can throw more memory at each thread than an x64 box can, at least for now. And on virtualized server workloads, this is what matters as much (and perhaps more) than clock speeds. The Power 550 can support up to 80 logical partitions, which can run IBM’s AIX or i operating systems or the Linuxes from Red Hat and Novell. It has the same I/O slot configuration and 3.5-inch disk bays as the Power 520, and its rPerf performance ranges from 21.18 (two cores running at 5 GHz) to 78.6 (eight cores running at 5 GHz).

iii. IBM unloads Nehalem towers, clusters

Anyway, with this week’s announcement, the Nehalem EP servers announced in March – the x3550 M2 and x3650 M2 racks, the HS22 blade, and the dx360 M2 hybrid – can all be the foundation of a Cluster 1350. IBM can put Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, or Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008.

There is also some new information about SLE training for administrators.

Novell Linux Certifications

Novell recently rolled out one new Linux certification, the Certified Linux Desktop Administrator (CLDA), and is expected to soon go live with the Certified Linux Administrator (CLA), as well (the exam numbers are 050-708 and 050-710, respectively). Both consist of a single exam on SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 that’s administered through either Prometric or VUE testing centers.

Xandros

The company bets and spends heavily on Presto at the moment. It still received some overage, e.g. from CNET Asia:

Though there are several “instant on” solutions out there, like Lenovo’s Splash-top on the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (pictured), Asus’ ExpressGate and Xandros’ Presto, you cannot actually boot into Windows immediately. Instead, what you are booting into is an alternative stripped-down Linux environment. Though there are many fctors involved, one of the reason Windows is unable to achieve instant boot times is because it has many background processes which require the system to run through many more lines of binary code compared with a Linux operating system.

This last sentence is poor because it shows that the writer is not IT-savvy or simply technology-illiterate. “Lines of binary code” hardly makes any sense. Here is another essay about Presto and here is the response offered to one person who is after Xandros/Eee despite the fact that Microsoft is said to be bribing ASUS for Xandros suppression.

Pasadena, CA: Hi Brian: I’m thinking about buying the ASUS EEE PC 1000 Netbook with Xandros Linux OS to avoid virus, malwares and all nasty stuffs. Do I/Should I install/use Linux anti-virus program like the free Avast Linux anti-virus program? Thank you, Don I’ve been reading your articles religiously

Brian Krebs: I wouldn’t worry about anti-virus software if you’re running Xandros/Linux. Just make sure you follow best practices, such as not running the system all the time as “root”. You might invest in a backup program to make an image of the drive (chances are extremely good that capability is built into the OS itself) in case something goes wrong.

Lastly, this German press release acts of a reminder that Scalix still plays a role at Xandros. █

Jupitermedia has published this review of SLED 11 (also here).

This release of the SLED product brings features from the latest distributions to a fully-supported enterprise offering. If you were a previous SLED user it had to be hard to watch the innovation happening with openSUSE and not have the same features available for use. The increased emphasis on security should help get the product more notice from the decision makers that count.

It’s hard to argue with facts like straight up cost comparisons. SLED 11 includes everything a typical business user needs to get their job done for one annual subscription cost of $120. That number may vary depending on number of seats and the level of support. SLED 11 is definitely worth the look as a solid enterprise-ready desktop platform.

Here is Rodney Gedda’s review again, but it’s in IDG’s Australian domain this time around. Here is an early glimpse at SUSE Studio.

SUSE studio is a web front-end to customize and build your own personal distribution in as many ways you could possibly think off. There are other similar services and applications that helps you make custom distribution but none of them are as extensive in customization options as SUSEstudio or as easy.

There is another new rave about SUSE Studio:

I would love to see a tool like this for debian. I’m pretty sure it won’t be much harder than suse’s tool to build. The clock counts down before the open-source hippies ruin a great tool’s reputation claiming that the server-side code is proprietary, despite knowing that it runs on server farms and took a really long time to get running.

Sub-notebooks

Channel Insider checked to see whether SLED 11 is suitable or not for enterprise sub-notebooks.

SLED 11 has a great deal in common with the recent OpenSUSE 11.1 release, but differs from other Linux distributions in yet another area; there is a relatively limited selection of software packages available for SLED 11. Novell is looking to address that limited software ecosystem by incorporating “single-click install,” which, as the name implies, makes installing application programs a breeze. As in previous versions, SLED 11 uses Novell’s update service to provide automated security and program updates. That service requires an activation code from Novell.

Novell turns out to be committed to distributing Moblin as well.

Fifteen operating system vendors have committed to distribute Moblin-based products, including Asianux, Canonical, DeviceVM, gOS, MontaVista, Novell, and Wind River.

Moblin might be a good idea in this case because SLED 10 on sub-notebooks appears to be rejected (MSI). Novell has a plan B, but Taiwan is where it's at.

DigiTimes reported on Monday that Novell has set up a research and development team in Taiwan to work on SUSE Linux variants for use in netbooks. Partners on the project, the report noted, are Acer, Asustek Computers, and Micro-Star International (MSI).

Requests to Novell and HP for comment were not returned by press time.

According to Tectonic, down south (in South Africa) Dell would preinstall SUSE on thin clients.

Southern African IT distributor Workgroup is anticipating growth in the South African Linux thin client market and says that Dell’s OptiPlex FX160 devices will be available locally pre-installed with Suse Linux Enterprise Thin Client.

iFolder

This is pretty major news because there has been no update in ages. Well, now there is one and here is the press release.

The iFolder project, a Novell-sponsored open source initiative that simplifies synchronizing files across multiple systems and enables users to securely access and share files with other users, today announced its first open source release since 2007. Available immediately, users and developers can download iFolder 3.7.2 client and server packages and source code. The latest release adds several features, including support for new platforms, additional security options, improved handling of file conflicts, and capabilities for merging files. In addition to an updated project Website, Novell has put in place a community development plan to ensure that iFolder becomes and remains a vital open source project.

The Indian press rewrote the press release and called iFolder a “major OS” (this is journalism?). Compare to the above:

The iFolder project, a Novell-sponsored open source initiative that simplifies synchronizing files across multiple systems and enables users to securely access and share files with other users, today announced its first open source release since 2007.

Zonker wrote about it too and so did his colleague at OStatic, Kristin Shoemaker.

Today we announced (officially) that iFolder code has been pushed out and we have a new iFolder Web site.

So, you can grab the source code from SourceForge immediately. We’re working on packages for openSUSE 11.0 and 11.1, and there’s work being done to put iFolder into the openSUSE Build Service as well.

Justin Ryan made it a side story at Linux Journal.

Long release cycles are by no means unusual in the Open Source world. While some projects — Ubuntu, for example, and GNOME — have release cycles one can set their watch by, other projects take a less tightly scheduled approach — Debian’s “we’ll release when it’s ready to release” philosophy comes to mind. Such would seem to be the case with the iFolder project, which released Version 3.7.2 on Friday — their first since 2007.

Xandros

Not so much to see here this week, but Xandros was crowing about its business using a press release.

Xandros, the leading provider of intuitive Linux solutions and mixed-environment management tools, is scheduled to present at the Cambria Capital Investor Meeting in Salt Lake City on April 9, 2009 at 3:45 pm MT. Andreas Typaldos, Xandros CEO, will update investors on current business developments and goals for 2009.

Some people are still deploying software from Xandros.

Sentegrity (www.sentegrity.com.br), today announced that, CCT Global Communications of the British Virgin Islands, has implemented Xandros’ Scalix as their standard email and collaboration platform.

The founder of Xandros made some press also.

The next post will focus on Novell’s business that excepts SUSE. █

OpenSUSE

After a relatively long downtime, Zonker weighed in and eventually confirmed that all services had been fully restored.

The main service affected by the above incident is the downloads service. Novell has also released a live version of OpenSUSE with the latest KDE4, which is available for download.

New KDE Four Live CDs with KDE 4.2.1, KOffice 2.0 Beta 7 and much more are up.

Heise, whose affinity for SUSE is clear to see due to geography, republished the OpenSUSE roadmap.

Stephan Kulow, the OpenSUSE project manager, has proposed a roadmap for the future versions of OpenSUSE. While Ubuntu and Fedora distributions currently aspire to provide a new release every six months, which is loosely pinned to the GNOME development schedule, previously OpenSUSE did not have a have a fixed release schedule. OpenSUSE will now try to ship a new version every eight months as part of their new release cycle.

There was not much in the blogosphere about OpenSUSE, but it was mentioned among 10 GNU/Linux distributions at Device Ace.

It’s very easy to install openSUSE 11.1, then you will have too choose between KDE 3.5.10, KDE 4.1.3, GNOME 2.24.1, Xfce 4.4.3, and 3D desktop using Compiz Fusion or kwin/KDE4 desktop environments. After you customize your categories and sub-categories, then you should try applications like OpenOffice.org 3.0, Wine 1.1.9, NetworkManager 0.7, Firefox 3.0.4, Bittorrent, Pidgin 2.5.1, and Banshee 1.4.1 among many others. openSUSE 11.1 features 3G and Bluetooth support, it’s reliable, free to download, fun and easy to use, and it will help you to get the job done!

Some HOWTOs that we found about OpenSUSE are:

1. Analyzing boot performance of OpenSuse 11.1 with bootchart
2. Easy live upgrade from 11.0 to 11.1
3. All in one Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Program for OpenSuse

There is likely to be lots more material in OpenSUSE Weekly News.

* openSUSE Project Meeting next Wednesday
* openSUSE Trademark Guidelines Released
* Ken Yap: How to clone a VirtualBox Linux VM to a real machine (v0.9)
* 11.2 Roadmap and Fixed Release Cycle for openSUSE
* Rupert Horstkötter: OSF Status Report #3

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

It was almost impossible to find anything, but SLES is mentioned in a sentence right here.

Most of those new features are also now available for Linux PCs, Ewing said. Altiris is supporting Novell Inc.’s SUSE and Red Hat Inc.’s Linux distributions, she said.

Novell’s GNU/Linux business is also mentioned in a sentence in the British press.

It could be argued that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will suffer more than most in the present bleak economic environment. Shorter cashflow cycles, limited bargaining power, shrinking funds available for IT investment and a lack of internal resources all look to be daunting obstacles.

[...]

Nevertheless, the fees for commercial open-source packages such as those on offer from Red Hat, Novell or Ingres, can often equal the total cost of ownership of propriety software over time.

And again, former Novell employee Matt Asay mentions SUSE (Studio) very briefly in this list of companies.

In this way open source embraces the Web, rather than fighting it, and makes software development and delivery an ongoing process, fitting it to how enterprises actually consume software. Novell’s SUSE Linux Studio groks this, enabling ongoing customization of Linux distributions. So does Red Hat’s RHEL distribution, which lets customers subscribe to ongoing, updated software. So, too, does Zimbra, which adds to the subscription commercial extensions.

Xandros

There was almost more coverage of Xandros than there was of SUSE. It was mostly to do with Presto, which we wrote about last week. It actually made Slashdot’s front page and also appeared in:

i. Exchange alternatives: Pros and cons

CommuniGate Pro (CommuniGate Systems), Kerio MailServer (Kerio Technologies), MDaemon Pro (Alt-N Technologies), MailSite Fusion (MailSite), Scalix Enterprise Edition (Scalix, a Xandros company), and Zimbra Collaboration Suite, Professional Edition (Zimbra, a Yahoo company).

ii. [Feature] CES Roundup: Equipment Makers Play for Survival (2)

Qualcomm Inc of the US is another hot prospect, exhibiting a notebook PC mounting its Snapdragon chipset for mobile equipment (Fig 11). It comes with RedFlag Linux and Xandros OS. The mobile phone network support provided by Snapdragon can be used for communication. CDMA Technologies vice president Mark Frankel of Qualcomm said, “We think this is the first Linux machine in the world capable of communication via the 3G network without any add-ons.” It is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2009.

iiii. Bypassing Windows with a Quick Boot

Software called Presto could provide an alternative to waiting. Demonstrated this week at Demo, a tech conference held in Palm Desert, CA, it joins a handful of products that have emerged recently in an effort to get people working on their computers faster. These products, offered by companies including Intel, HP, and DeviceVM, generally allow a person to boot up in less than 30 seconds, and in some cases less than 10.

Presto made it into this list of “Cool New Technologies.” It also appeared as a feature or merely mentioned in coverage from Canada where parts of the company are based.

Xandros is based in the U.S. with their development lab in Ottawa. They launched Presto, a software application allowing your computer to boot up in seconds rather than minutes. You don’t open up Windows, yet you still access most functions.

Lastly, to address a separate area of Xandros, a Xandros partner issued this press release about Scalix.

A spokesperson for Sentegrity, the exclusive distributor of all Xandros products and services in Latin America, Mexico and the Caribbean, today announced a new client in Ecuador.

The Hilton Hotel Quito Ecuador has standardized their email solution and chose Scalix as their only email and collaboration platform. Sentegrity systems integration partner, Eqtek, provided the hands on implementation and vital guidance to migrate the hotel’s 120 employees to Scalix.

In summary, although GNU/Linux thrives in general, SUSE seems to be slowing down and Xandros is moving to other areas that don’t tackle the desktop market in the most direct of ways. █

OpenSUSE

FOR OpenSUSE at the least, the past week has been an exceptionally quiet one, but events from the previous week got posted in the OpenSUSE Web site, namely:

* openSUSE@FOSDEM2009
* HP Builds on the openSUSE Education Project
* Masim Sugianto: Tutorial : VirtualBox on openSUSE 11.1 Part 2
* openSUSE Forums: How to install KDE 4.2
* Build maemo-apps with openSUSE BuildService ? – It works !

The biggest event in the past week was probably the availability of KDE 4.2 for OpenSUSE.

The KDE Project released KDE 4.2 on Tuesday, and of course openSUSE packages were available in time for the release. If you missed the pointer from the KDE announcement info page, you can get your KDE 4.2 fix in a number of ways.

There are a few other OpenSUSE HOWTOs of interest and also this development notice which relates to openSUSE 11.2.

The openSUSE Factory distribution is our permanent development distribution. Currently used to develop openSUSE 11.2. We want to make the factory distribution better usable for everybody to get a better testing for next release.
One of the complaints we received in the last years is that the huge amount of newly built packages makes it hard for people to keep their system up to date, simply due to the time needed for downloading and installing the packages.

OpenSUSE was listed here as a GNU/Linux distribution option which is “decent”.

My first port of call was OpenSUSE, a distro I have used on and off over the years; it was in fact my first serious introduction to Linux. The problem with it was that Fedora had installed a disk partitioning scheme that the SUSE installer couldn’t deal with, and it gave up with a cryptic error message when I tried installing it. The only solution was to transfer all my files to another computer, completely erase all my partitions and install afresh, which I did. The network problems persisted, and (unlike Fedora) it could not install the drivers for my ATi graphics card. So, that had to go as well.

SLED

The main development was to do with Dell’s thin clients. From the press release:

SUSE Linux Enterprise Thin Client to be preloaded on new Dell OptiPlex thin client devices

Novell today announced that Dell will preload SUSE Linux Enterprise Thin Client, the market’s leading enterprise-quality Linux thin client operating system, onto Dell’s new OptiPlex FX160 thin client device. The OptiPlex FX160 is part of Dell’s diverse portfolio of Flexible Computing Solutions, which was introduced in October 2008. SUSE Linux Enterprise Thin Client from Novell in conjunction with Dell’s Optiplex FX160 will help customers dramatically lower costs, while simplifying IT from the desktop to the data center.

Among the early coverages:

This week Novell announced they’ve signed a deal that will see Dell using SUSE Linux Enterprise on their new OptiPlex FX160 thin clients. This move means corporate IT departments will be able to simplify IT at a lower cost than ever before.

More analysis indicates that it goes beyond just the thin client:

Well, well, how about that Dell? In a landmark decision, Dell announced that it has penned a deal to use Novell’s SUSE Linux in its data centers to power its new OptiPlex FX 160 thin client systems. Wow. Dell is doing this to save money and simplify its IT infrastructure and requirements.

This was covered in:

• Dell Partners with Novell in Thin Client Distribution
• Dell preloading Novell’s SUSE Linux on thin clients
• Dell to roll out OptiPlex with SUSE Linux
• Novell: Dell Offers Enterprise Linux Operating System from Novell to Address Growing Market for Thin Clients

SUSE, SLES

On the server side, there was some progress too.

SoftLayer Adds SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

[...]

On-demand virtual data center services provider SoftLayer Technologies (www.softlayer.com) has added SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell (www.novell.com) to its portfolio of server operating systems, giving all customers an enterprise-grade distribution of the open source Linux OS for no additional cost.

The Indian press referred to Novell’s Linux a little more generally.

Bangalore, Feb. 4 The economic slowdown is prompting companies to migrate even their mission critical systems to open source platforms such as Linux, a move that would help them cut costs, consolidate and run their IT infrastructure more efficiently.

Novell Inc, an enterprise infrastructure software and services vendor, expects more customers to migrate their mission critical applications onto Linux.

“Linux has seen most of growth coming from on the edge Unix processes. And, now, customers have started shifting the mission critical systems to Linux. That’s where we have focused aggressively as a company,” said Mr Ronald W. Hovsepian, President and CEO, Novell.

It’s not so clear what version of SUSE is used here.

Digitar has been using Novell’s (NASDAQ: NOVL) SUSE Linux software on its HP (NYSE: HPQ) servers since it opened its doors. However, the company tried the Linux storage subsystem a few years ago with unsatisfactory results.

“At that time, we found the Linux storage subsystem to lack reliability and the Linux Volume Manager (LVM) to be slow,” said Williams. “Back then, I wasn’t familiar with OpenSolaris and I must confess that I was anti-Solaris, as I had found it difficult to use while at college. I preferred the Solaris kernel but believed Linux to be more user-friendly.”

Ditto for this one:

Areas of expertise are Linux, High Availability, Virtualization, and Backup and cross platform solutions. Vendors include: Novell, Acronis, Parallels, Coyote Point, Avira and Propalms, among others.

Xandros

The presence of Scalix at an exhibition was mentioned last week and here is another press release (also in MSNBC).

Scalix, the premier Linux email, calendaring and messaging company, today announced that key staff will showcase powerful hosting solutions that enable email, messaging and group calendaring capabilities, including rich Outlook support, without the expense of Exchange, at the Parallels Summit 2009, Las Vegas, Nevada, February 3-4. The Parallels Summit features in-depth technical, business, and product sessions that focus on Cloud Computing, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Automation and Virtualization.

Turbolinux

There is almost nothing going on there except for occasional advisories and responses to them. █

OpenSUSE

TUXMACHINES has not been reachable via DNS for almost a week now and since it is a primary source of OpenSUSE news to us, there was not much that we managed to pick.

There were various HOWTOs in a variety of sites, but more interesting it was to find out that Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier now writes for Linux Pro Magazine, not just OStatic, ZDNet and a variety of other publications like Linux Magazine the SourceForge ‘family’. These hats are occasionally being used to promote the employer (Novell) and a product (Open/SUSE).

KDE 4.2 was released as well and OpenSUSE’s role received this mention.

(Novell’s SUSE Linux users tend to use KDE moreso than GNOME; some features from KDE 4.2 were backported into the OpenSUSE 11.1 release last month.)

There is coverage from Linuxtag 2009 and writings about FOSDEM 2009 over at the OpenSUSE Web site. We wrote about FOSDEM before [1, 2, 3] and some people now deny that say they won’t go because of Novell. Others do protest against the sponsorship.

There may be some more interesting things in the OpenSUSE Web site, which delivers weekly news as usual.

In this Week:

* FOSDEM 2009
* Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors
* Novell’s 2009 Technical Strategy and Process
* NTFS-3g – writing to windows partition
* Preview/Fix broken AVI files in openSUSE

In another newer post, OpenSUSE is listed not as a primary alternative to what the writer perceives as GNU/Linux leader on the desktop.

The first choice, openSUSE (it’s not “openSuSE”), wouldn’t be my first pick- maybe second or third, but it would still make the list.

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

Francis (nickname apokryphos) from the OpenSUSE project is still boosting SUSE, this time in Slashdot. It’s fair enough, but he is among those in Slashdot who try to pressure the editors not to link to us.

There was not much news about SLE*, but there were some bits about the SUSE Linux-based Ideapad, which we previously wrote about in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

From Phoronix comes an extensive test:

While there are many different netbooks on the market, one of the models that has been selling quite well and is popular with many enthusiasts is the IdeaPad S10 from Lenovo. The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 can be customized, but is equipped with an Intel Atom N270 processor, a 10.2″ anti-glare display, and Broadcom 802.11b/g WiFi. In this latest Phoronix article we are looking at the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 along with providing some Linux-based benchmarks.

Linux Planet brought this article about the product. (also here)

Netbooks are all the rage right now with Linux as one of the primary operating system (OS) options. The Eee PC from ASUS got things started and originally only shipped with a Linux OS. This year’s Consumer Electronics Show was overrun with the little laptops from a wide variety of vendors. It was only a matter of time before the big guys rolled out their own mini-laptop offerings. Now you can find a netbook from just about every major laptop manufacturer, with the exception of Apple.

[...]

Installed software on the S10e is impressive including Open Office 2.4 Novell edition, The GIMP, Firefox 3.0, Evolution, Helix Banshee, the F-Spot photo manager and Tomboy for note taking. If you don’t find what you need, there’s an easy-to-use software update tool to help you find it. You will have to go through a registration process to connect to the Novell-sponsored repositories, but it doesn’t take long.

Additionally, there was this press release about OES2.

Xandros

On the server side, there was this one press release about Scalix but nothing particularly special about the Xandros-branded products.

Scalix, the premier Linux email, calendaring and messaging company, today announced that key staff will showcase the latest Scalix (http://www.scalix.com) email, calendaring and messaging solutions at ITnT (http://www.itnt.at/en/index.html), Vienna, Austria, January 27 – 29. ITnT is the leading trade fair for InformationTechnology and Telecommunication focused on Central Europe.

As we stated before, these weekly links are no longer delivered on Saturdays (not strictly anyway). Adding to the delay is the fact that we are having hosting issues (growing pains). The MySQL server was restarted some while ago while isolating our main database. It has been doing 286,000 queries per hour since (79.47 queries per second), so we must reach out for permanent solutions that prevent this from recurring. We can’t handle heavy loads, so Squid will probably be installed soon.

The longer story is that we measure over 80 DB queries per second right now (86 at this very moment). It was a lot more yesterday, which potentially crashed the database server while a write operation was applied to one of the databases. █

Teradata is working with SUSE, as in the past we showed in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Now come a couple of articles from India about it:

1. Analytical Platform for Entry Level Enterprises

The platform includes the following features:

* Teradata 550 SMP (symmetric multiprocessing)- a departmental data warehouse, designed to meet customers’ need for a smaller, less expensive system. It was developed to run a single application or support test and development workloads and can be installed within hours of delivery. It is simple to set up and can use the Novell SUSE Linux 64-bit OS or Windows.

2. Teradata Unveils Family of Analytical Platforms

The Teradata 550 SMP is a departmental data warehouse, designed to meet customers’ need for a smaller, less expensive system. It was developed to run a single application or support test and development workloads and can be installed within hours of delivery. It is simple to set up and can use the Novell SUSE Linux 64-bit operating system or Windows.

[...]

The Teradata 2500 entry-level data warehouse is a cost-effective, fully integrated, scalable platform with dual-core Intel processors, industry standard enterprise-class storage, open Novell SUSE Linux 64-bit operating system, and the Teradata 12 database and utilities. All are pre-installed in a single “ready to run” cabinet with energy-efficient green technologies.

Another product which is worth mentioning is the Lenovo ThinkServer that runs SUSE. It’s in the news again.

The same month, Lenovo launched its first servers outside of China with the ThinkServer line for SMBs with up to 500 employees. The new line includes three tower and two rack servers available with Microsoft Windows Server or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell. The systems are powered by a variety of Intel processors and prices start at $749.

There is also this SAP-Novell relationship, which we remarked on in the past.

Included with the integrated bundle will come SAP’s All-in-One ERP system hosted on a Primergy RX300 S4 rack, along with a version of SAP MaxDB database running on the SUSE Enterprise Linux operating system from Novell.

Novell put its head in ‘the cloud’ (servers), still hoping to edge out Red Hat.

I’ve been thinking, which isn’t quite as dangerous as you might think. I’ve been thinking about cloud computing. Or more specifically what goes into cloud computing, the various definitions and what it could mean to us here at Novell.

[...]

How do you host this level of service? How about on a fast, reliable, secure and massively scalable infrastructure that can operate in a continuity model, with support for both physical and virtualized hosts. How fortunate that by combining Platespin and SLES we can deliver this.

Hamish Taylor compared the importance of GNU/Linux to the old(er) role of Novell servers and maybe Netware too.

Generally speaking, at or near the top every Linux advocate’s list of “The best things about Linux” is the word “alternative”. Linux gives people an alternative; a choice of operating systems; you don’t have to be locked into using Microsoft’s, or anyone elses, software.

In other words: Linux forces competition into the marketplace.

In the mid 90′s to early 2000′s, Microsoft competed with Unix and Novell for the SME server market. They won significant market share with NT3.51, NT4 and Win2000. This was mostly as a result of having pretty decent products which were relatively easy to use and at pretty good prices. Linux is now competing against Microsoft in many marketspaces, for much of the same reasons.

Desktop

It was last week that we wrote about the big H-P news. There is still some more coverage appearing about it, e.g. this one article from India:

Days of ‘Wow’ Windows Vista may not be numbered, but Microsoft’s operating systems are facing strong winds from many of its competitors. Many of its close partners are now inching towards GNU/Linux systems. HP is introducing GNU/Linux as an operating system choice for business desktop customers. The offerings are designed to help small businesses enhance their productivity and ease their management of technology.

Glyn Moody wrote about that too while eWeek wrote about virtual desktops from H-P.

Hewlett-Packard is looking to offer new virtualization software and services for those enterprises seeking to create a centralized infrastructure for managing a fleet of corporate clients. The HP Virtual Client Essentials software suite offers technology to enhance the video and graphics capabilities of HP’s virtual desktop infrastructure offerings. The desktop virtualization also offers new support for thin-client PCs running Linux and added support for USB peripherals.

Personnel

The press in Utah covered a public appearance of Ron Hovsepian. The article is mostly focused on Novell, but Microsoft was there too.

“There’s an evolution right now in the IT industry,” Hovsepian recently told a gathering of honchos from the high-tech industry and government sponsored by the Utah Technology Council.

[...]

For Novell, that has meant strengthening an “ecosystem” of partners. One example is Novell’s once-unthinkable alliance with Microsoft announced in 2006 in which the 800-pound gorilla of the software world agreed to peddle Novell’s version of the open source Linux server software, the programs that run businesses’ computer systems.

[....]

Keith Otis, general manager for Microsoft’s southwest area (which includes Utah), described it as a “hybrid approach” for connecting computers and devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants.

There are still many articles out there about the new appointment of Ted Ts’o, but most of them say nothing about the departure of Novell's Rex.

On Thursday, the Linux Foundation announced it had appointed Ted Ts’o as Chief Technology Officer. In this position, Ts’o will lead all of the Foundation’s technical initiatives, and be the technical point of contact for Linux Foundation members and its Technical Advisory Board.

Xandros

The distribution was mentioned a few times in articles about the Eee PC. Here is one example.

with the Xandros Linux OS and a 40G-byte solid state drive (SSD) for storage and 6-cell battery, followed by Micro-Star International’s Wind U100 with a 6-cell battery.

A company called Sentegrity made an appearance and it has some kind of relationship with Xandros.

Sao Paulo, December 12, 2008 – Sentegrity, exclusive distributor of Xandros products in LatAM and Tecnoworld, a leader in manufacturing of technology components announced today a agreement, encompassing sales and marketing in Brazil.

[...]

“Tecnoworld is an ideal partner for Sentegrity in Brazil due to their excellent reputation and extensive customer channels”, said James Largotta, Managing Director and General Manager of Xandros in Latin America and the Caribbean. “Tecnoworld has a proven track record. Their people and infrastructure make this collaboration a perfect match for both companies, allowing us to offer and support our existing products and expand our product offerings in key areas.”

This press release appeared in a couple of languages.

Sentegrity the leader in Open Source solutions and exclusive distributor of Xandros products and services in Latin America, announced today an aggressive plan to offer financing to their partner network.

PC Pro has added this ‘research paper’ (PR lies) and down at the bottom it reveals something interesting about a man with roots in Scalix/Xandros.

Danny Essner
Director of Marketing, Intermedia
As Director of Marketing for Intermedia, Danny is responsible for all customer and channel partner acquisition and retention strategies for Intermedia’s Microsoft Exchange hosting and SaaS offerings. Prior to joining Intermedia, Danny ran marketing and channel development at Linux-based Exchange alternative Scalix and Linux-based operating system and management tools software company, Xandros, where he helped negotiate strategic relationships with Microsoft and Red Hat.

Is it possible that a man behind bad patent deals just simply left the company? What was the capacity of these “strategic relationships”? █