05.29.09
Posted in Finance, GNU/Linux, Novell at 12:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
More belt-tightening moves
Summary: Novell’s 5-year contract is estimated at about $135 million, compromises existing staff
BACK IN APRIL we saw Novell offshoring GNU/Linux developers (mostly Germany-based) to Taiwan. It’s a sacrifice, but Ron Hovsepian's family wants his huge bonuses. In last night’s financial report Novell bragged to investors about cost reductions and this might be it. Novell’s CFO spoke about needing to reduce expenses further, according to the transcript of the call. Around the same time we find this ACS-Novell press release (also located here).
Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (NYSE: ACS) and Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) today announced a strategic partnership to expand their core technical capabilities and suite of services. As part of the partnership, Novell will outsource part of its internal IT operations to ACS, which will also provide SAP consulting and applications development and maintenance system integration services as part of a $135 million, five-year contract. ACS will also partner with Novell to enhance its global data center operations and will purchase at least $30 million in Novell products during the first three years of the partnership.
There are already articles about it:
Novell, ACS form outsourcing, supply partnership
[...]
The outsourcing partnership involves shifting service delivery from the 156 employees of Novell Information Services and Technology group in Provo, Utah. A release from both companies does not outline where ACS will then outsource this work, but Novell officials expect “significant cost savings.”
There is this talk about “cost saving” again. More in this British Web site:
ACS AND NOVELL LAUNCH STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
SAYS AS PART OF THE PARTNERSHIP, NOVELL WILL OUTSOURCE PART OF ITS INTERNAL it operations to ACS
And more from the British press:
Novell, having reported its second quarter financial results yesterday after Wall Street closed, said it had inked a deal with Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services to have that outsourcer take over its ERP systems and related data center in Provo, Utah.
This is a 5-year contract weighing about $135 million. █
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Posted in Finance, Novell, Ron Hovsepian, Servers, SLES/SLED at 12:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Novell’s revenue is down, expenses are down, and more cutbacks are said to be needed
A MORE comprehensive analysis will come tomorrow, but here are some quick findings about Novell’s latest results, which obviously it is trying to spin (all companies do).
This morning’s article from Timothy is probably the best so far as the author is typically isolated from marketing bias and mindless flocking which cascades down from press release that are selective by design.
For its quarter ended April 30, Novell sales fell by 8.5 per cent to $215.6m. But because it has been tightening the belt and it had a pretty bad corresponding quarter last fiscal year, bringing $15m to the bottom line looked good by contrast. Nonetheless, Novell has a ways to go before it is as profitable as it needs to be or investors want it to be, and as it turns out, key product lines are not profitable.
[...]
Novell booked $7m in restructuring charges in the quarter, and its headcount was the same as it was at the end of the last quarter, with 3,900 employees. Russell said that in a normal fiscal year, the second half usually sees a revenue bump, but he warned that sales could stay flat quarter to quarter (as they did so far in fiscal 2009), and that means Novell is going to be under pressure to cut costs to keep in the black.
From Seeking Alpha:
# Novell (NOVL) Q2 EPS of 5 cents misses by 1 cent. Q2 revenue $216M vs. consensus of $218M.
More here:
Software service provider Novell Inc. (NOVL) said its second quarter profit jumped from a year ago as expenses declined, despite an 8.5% fall in revenues reflecting a huge drop in software licenses and services revenue. On an adjusted basis, earnings came in above Street estimates, while revenues fell short.
Novell’s SLE* business is still growing, but it is not growing fast enough to keep Novell afloat in its current scale.
The software provider achieved revenue of $216m (£134m), down from $236m in the same period last year. Net income was up to $16m from $6m in 2008.
Well, they laid people off and cut expenses associated with luxuries like BrainShare. It’s worth noting that the whole of Novell’s income combined is about twice that of Ron Hovsepian's bonus for 2008. And that’s just one person’s bonus, to put things in perspective. There is no recession for the CEO’s household/family.
According to this, “Novell, Inc. closed yesterday up 1.37% on over 6.7 million shares traded.” But today it goes down sharply, unlike the market as a whole. Novell (NOVL) fell as low as $2.5 some months ago. To quote:
Novell, Inc (NOVL) in the last one year traded as high as $7.10 in May 2008 and as low as $2.49 in March 2009. Based on the yesterday’s closing price $4.43 the company has market cap of $1.53 billion.
NOVL is still considered a stock to watch today.
Friday’s biggest gaining and declining stocks
Companies whose shares are expected to see active U.S. trading on Friday include General Motors, Dell, Novell and Office Depot.
A new report about NOVL (SADIF Analytics) says that “Novell, Inc. is an average quality company with a positive outlook. Novell, Inc. has weak business growth and is run by efficient management. When compared to its closest peer, MICROS Systems, Inc., Novell, Inc. shows similar overvaluation and is equally likely to outperform the market.”
Well, Sun was acquired and it amasses huge losses. This comparison does not work in Novell’s favour. █
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Posted in Antitrust, Europe, Microsoft, Patents, Videos at 7:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
THE president of the FFII says that he “has just copied the European Commission’s video where Neelie Kroes explains that Microsoft can tax competitors with patents.” Here is a high-resolution version [MPEG] and the Ogg version below. █
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Posted in Courtroom, Europe, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Law, Microsoft at 7:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft cash cows get no green pastures
Summary: Microsoft’s contract in Switzerland shot down by lawsuit
Previous posts about the Swiss government being sued for blindly selecting Microsoft are:
- Microsoft Sued Over Its Corruption in Switzerland, Microsoft Debt Revisited
- Can the United Kingdom and Hungary Still be Sued for Excluding Free Software?
- 3 New Counts of Antitrust Violation by Microsoft?
- Is Microsoft Breaking the Law in Switzerland Too?
- Microsoft Uses Lobbyists to Attack Holland’s Migration to Free Software and Sort of Bribes South African Teachers Who Use Windows
- ZDNet/eWeek Ruins Peter Judge’s Good Article by Attacking Red Hat When Microsoft Does the Crime
- Week of Microsoft Government Affairs: a Look Back, a Look Ahead
The initial outcome is finally in (Swiss press) with partial English translations in Slashdot, whose summary is:
Looks like the challenge to the Swiss Administrative Court concerning the government contract given to Microsoft without any public bidding was successful: The court has issued a temporary injunction (note: article in German) against the Federal Office of Buildings and Logistics (BBL), effectively stopping the CHF 14M (£8M; $15M)-contract to deliver licenses and support for software used on government computers for the next three years. According to Swiss Government practices, any contract over CHF 50’000 has to undergo a public call for offers. The BBL cited ‘no serious alternatives’ as the reason which this contract never did.
Free/open source companies can now follow the same footsteps and carry out similar actions in other European nations, e.g. the UK and Hungary, even Italy. Quebec did this last year.
An anonymous person tells us that the “only problem is, what happens when they do another round of bidding, and find out that there’s maybe one or two 10 year old, crusty proprietary apps that won’t run in Wine? [...] Still those specialized apps out there that were coded only for Windows years ago (either by a niche proprietary group or an in-house group that has since moved on) can be a bit or a problem for Linux adoption. It’s not Linux’s fault there, but then the business doesn’t always have the time, money, and/or manpower to have brand new code written and debugged.”
Any suggestions? █
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Posted in Antitrust, Deception, Europe, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 6:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Rob Enderle still attacking Google and GNU/Linux (and Preston Gralla from IDG likewise); Spinners from IDG tilt Microsoft antitrust in Microsoft’s favour
IDG’s relationship with Microsoft is a subject which we wrote about quite comprehensively in the past [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. This company has its share of Linux-hostile writers, one of whom is Preston Gralla. His Microsoft crusade is something we previously wrote about in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Gralla sells Windows books, so his agenda merely aligns with his pockets. But why does he spend so much time attacking Microsoft rivals he knows nothing about? Why does IDG permit this? Ad revenue?
“Gralla sells Windows books, so his agenda merely aligns with his pockets. But why does he spend so much time attacking Microsoft rivals he knows nothing about?”There are quite a few reporters in IDG (also ZDNet) who write about GNU/Linux despite not using it. Ever! That would be the equivalent of someone who never tried any Apple products writing about how Macs suck (based on screenshots and other reporters). It’s simply not appropriate.
Preston Gralla is to GNU/Linux what Rob Enderle is to GNU/Linux, but the former is still far worse at hiding the source of his poison pen [1, 2]. Gralla is somewhat of a wannabe of Enderle, who is still at it by the way — currently aggravating Google with an outrageous comparison to Palin over at ECT.
Another person is calling out Gralla for his seemingly endless attacks on GNU/Linux.
In this weeks (May 18th, 2009) Computerworld print edition’s opinion column “Desktop Linux: Why you Shouln’t Care” Preston Gralla (who?) bashes Linux for no apparent reason other than to bash something he obviously knows nothing about. I’ve never heard of this guy before so I checked out the rest of his blog post, and to my surprise (note the sarcasm) yep he loves his Microsoft. It’s fine to love your operating system of choice but it’s another thing to spread out right lies about the operating system you choose not to use.
It is valuable to put one’s effort citing (and thus ‘fueling’) the writings of those reporters who actually use GNU/Linux and write about it, not those who provoke to defend their personal interests. They are like lobbyists dressed up as writers and sometimes they even swap such roles (analysts-lobbysists-journalists-marketers). Some of these roles are easily interchangeable as Peter Galli, Peter O’Kelly, and Michael Gartenberg [1, 2] demonstrate very nicely.
A couple of days ago, Glyn Moody drew attention to the Web site of ALT (not to be confused with Microsoft lobbyist ATL), which stands for Alliance for Lobbying Transparency.
The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency (ALT) is an alliance of civil society groups concerned about the growing influence of professional lobbying on Government decision-making and life in the UK.
Banning or jailing would be even better and more suitable than just transparency.
The above is a very timely pointer because of ACT [1, 2, 3], an incarnation of Microsoft lobbyists ATL. Paul Meller is again promoting (by parroting) the ACT party line in IDG:
The latest Microsoft antitrust battle in Europe has sparked a turf war between lobby groups that claim to represent small and medium size enterprises’ (SMEs) interests in the case.PIN-SME, a lobby group on the side of the European Commission — Europe’s top antitrust authority — hit out at rival the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) in a statement Thursday. The document dismissed ACT’s claim earlier this week that SMEs need a solid Windows platform containing Internet Explorer (IE) for building software.
[...]
Another long-serving Microsoft ally in its European Commission antitrust battles, the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) Thursday backed up Zuck’s argument that SMEs are on Microsoft’s side in the case.CompTIA is intervening in the Microsoft case on behalf of 90 SMEs, it said.
What is Meller doing? He is bringing another Microsoft lobbying gun (CompTIA to be precise [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]) into this debate so as to verify and virtually justify ACT’s talking point, which is Microsoft’s.
“It’s the illusion of confrontation or a debate between straw men.”A informant calls the author “MS Meller”, explaining that he “puts ACT and Pin SME on equal footing, impl[ying] Pin SME was on the same grounds.” It’s the illusion of confrontation or a debate between straw men. To suggest that there is representation of small businesses here is also the illusion that businesses large and small (Mirosoft AstroTurf) support Microsoft in this particular case. it’s not just dishonest and unethical; it should be considered criminal.
“Have a look at his article history just for the NYTimes,” says our informant about Paul Meller. He is among the Brussels correspondents (IDG says that he explores “European Commission” issues).
Further to previous coverage of Microsoft dodging the EU hearing [1, 2], there is also this short piece suggesting that Microsoft deliberately discredits the European Commission.
Whoever tries to slap in the face of the European hearing officer because some potential national observers prefer to go to an international conference, looks pretty incompetent. It was reported also Commissioner Kroes intended to honour the hearing of DG competition with her attendance. It seems also inspiring how failure is spinned in a way to smear the Commission and dig the hole deeper.
At the end of the day, a lot of this boils down to politics and those who cover (spin) this. IDG is hardly a source to be trusted. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 5:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: SourceForge buys a company with a roots in Microsoft
SourceForge has just announced that it is buying Ohloh, a company with more people and data than actual hard assets.
For those who are not aware, Ohloh is a company created by Microsoft folks and it exists inside the territories of Microsoft’s #1 rival, which Microsoft is trying to assimilate. Other such companies include LikeWise, for example. Another one is Black Duck, which was created by an ex-Microsoft staffer (he later left) and now endorses Microsoft as part of "open source". That is the company which is actively attacking open source using software patents.
Here is a statement from SourceForge regarding its latest acquisition:
“We expect that the acquisition of Ohloh and the integration of its technology to significantly improve our insights about the open source development community and our ability to target advertising,” said Jon Sobel, SourceForge’s group president of Media, in announcing the deal. The acquisition is one of very few advertising-centric deals being made in this economic environment, and is evidence that open source continues to have momemtum during the downturn.
On several occasions last year we noted that SourceForge had adopted a softer stance on Microsoft [1, 2]. There was also a major change in leadership, but it’s hard to tell just how much of a role this had, if any.
As a side note, Google too had some more Microsoft people join its staff, which may explain Windows bias (think Chome) and use of software like ActiveX (think Google Maps) and DirectX (think Picasa). Recruiters and acquirers should be careful. █
“Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
“Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer [...] I can’t imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business. I’m an American; I believe in the American way, I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don’t think we’ve done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat.”
–Jim Allchin, President of Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft
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Posted in Microsoft, Search, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 4:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Trying a second time does not mend a broken crown jewel product, so what is left for Microsoft to do?
YESTERDAY we wrote about the latest realisation (of Microsoft fans) that Vista 7 suffers from the same problems as its twin, Windows Vista. It has become truly heavy ahead of RTM. Sam Varghese calls Vista 7 “Vista Mark II” in his latest article on the subject.
For sometime earlier this year, there was much talk about how Windows 7 was going to play saviour to rescue its creators from the cesspit that Vista had created. Now it looks like even the biggest fans of that company in Redmond have realised that it is another dud.
I guess the disillusionment has begun with the netbook; for a while Windows 7 was going to run on netbooks at speeds that would rival that of XP. But when Microsoft decided that netbooks needed to be redefined – the classic tactic of moving the goalposts when your argument misses its mark – then the scales fell from admiring eyes.
There’s no need to wonder anymore: Windows 7 will be Vista Mark II. The time for illusions is over and the real stuff is being jammed into the innards of this great operating system – to use bizspeak, ” as we speak, 24/7, seamlessly.”
What has passed for a netbook all this time never was. No, the new specs which Microsoft has brought to the table are those of a low-end laptop. You need to pay through the nose for a toy too.
[...]
If you’re the kind who likes freedom, then GNU/Linux is there in all its glorious flavours. You have the out-of-the-box working kind, or you have the fiddly kind where you learn things that make you appreciate the hard work that goes into creating a multiuser, secure operating system.
Whereas Linux powers computers large and small (from macro to nano), Microsoft is still struggling with trivial things:
Microsoft support: Just wiggle the mouse until the problem goes away
The Web is buzzing with this genius workaround Microsoft devised for an Oracle problem while using Excel. I had no idea my great aunt works in Microsoft’s technical support team, as this is just the sort of solution she’d likely devise:
Method 2: Move Your Mouse Pointer
[...]
This is truly the demise of Microsoft. New names for old products, e.g. “Windows 7″ (Vista reloaded), “Zune HD” and “Bing” (Live is not dead yet) will change almost nothing. It’s only left for Microsoft investors to decide what they waste money on. █
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Posted in Google, Mail, Microsoft, Search, Servers, Steve Ballmer at 4:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Another look at Microsoft’s online ambitions, online damages, and climatic damages too
MICROSOFT’S latest endeavors in search seem like just a rename and maybe a collaboration of some kind with Yahoo! TechCrunch claims to have found the logo of this ‘new’ Bing thing and it does not look so original.
Microsoft’s Bing Logo Leaked By Way Of Favicon?
[...]
This favicon, which again, may only be a part of the logo, also looks a lot like the logo for Blinkx, the video search engine. That features a red lowercase “b” with an eye in the middle. See them side-by-side below.
Search engines happen to be an area where duplication of effort (competition) tends to entail a huge environmental toll. Bandwidth becomes just a secondary concern although that too requires a lot of routing, in addition to lots of brute-force processing (at both ends, not just that of search engines).
In other Internet news, Microsoft Windows continues to destroy E-mail. Over 90% of it is said to be spewed from Windows botnets, at least according to Symantec’s numbers.
Spam now accounts for 90.4 percent of all e-mail, according to a report released Monday from security vendor Symantec. This means that 1 out of every 1.1 e-mails is junk. The report also notes that spam shot up 5.1 percent just from April to May.
Some time ago in April we learned about the effect of SPAM on the world's climate. It contributes a considerable deal to climate change and Greenpeace is now slamming Microsoft (again) for harming for the environment.
Greenpeace gives Microsoft’s Ballmer score of 7 — out of 100
[...]
That’s the score received by the Microsoft CEO in a new Greenpeace report card ranking the top technology executives on their environmental records. The report dings Ballmer for not speaking out on the environment. It also takes the company to task over its emissions reduction targets and political advocacy.
This is far from the first time Microsoft is slammed by Greenpeace. Other than words and hype, Microsoft offers nothing of substance to get its act together. █
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