In surprise move, attorneys general in four states that previously said antitrust agreement was working now argue Redmond’s “Microsoft’s Windows monopoly is indisputably resilient.”
Very few people have known about tomorrow’s lock-ins, but that’s because Microsoft keeps quiet about it. Microsoft knows why keeping quiet is the better way.
“It is a progressive hijack of the World Wide Web.”A new report sheds some more light on the issues. Unsurprisingly, Silverlight, which we’ve warned about since the start (mind Novell’s role as an accomplice and eyewitness), is in the middle of this debate too. We used to mention some complaints that had been made to the EU about this. It is a progressive hijack of the World Wide Web.
The states’ report seems to imply that Microsoft will try to find a way to tie Silverlight to IE in the future, and leverage the 80 percent market share of IE on the desktop to try and edge out competitors like Adobe AIR.
To recaputulate, watch the following older articles (January this year).
An industry coalition that has represented competitors of Microsoft in European markets before the European Commission stepped up its public relations offensive this morning, this time accusing Microsoft of scheming to upset HTML’s place in the fabric of the Internet with XAML, an XML-based layout lexicon for network applications.
Here is the text from an expired article that once appeared in CNN. It vanished for no reasons since then and even confirmed the suspicions that CNN’s archive is selective (excluding some Linux stories as well, according to people whom I spoke to).
Software rivals say Microsoft’s Vista illegal in Europe (at CNNMoney.com)
[...]
Software manufacturers, citing 2004 European Commission finding, contend the operating system violates server laws in Europe.
[...]
“Vista is the first step of Microsoft’s strategy to extend its market dominance to the Internet,” the ECIS statement said.
It said Microsoft’s XAML markup language was “positioned to replace HTML,” the industry standard for publishing documents on the Internet.
Microsoft’s own language would be dependent on Windows, and discriminatory against rival systems such as Linux, the group says.
They said a so-called “open XML” platform file format, known as OOXML, is designed to run seamlessly only on the Microsoft Office platform.
So, XAML and OOXML are a major part of this hijack attempt, which can be made successful by leveraging the monopoly on the desktop. There’s also SharePoint’s role here:
This could be a tough one for IT leaders. Business users are comfortable with Microsoft. They know how to use the Office interface, and apparently like it to the point users will create their own mini-BI tools from Excel and opt out of the corporate system. But, if Asay’s right, vendor lock-in could cause unforeseen problems or major costs down the road.
After reading Asay’s column and the interview with Nicholls, at least you’ll know which questions to ask before investing in either SharePoint or an alternative solution.
Be aware that Novell’s role here is not too obvious to see, but Novell not only supports OOXML (it began the OOXML translator project after it had signed the deal with Microsoft). Novell also uses the controversial Mono to support Microsoft’s Silverlight. This can turn Linux into a second-class citizen on the Web [1, 2, 3]. Novell should have demonstrated against it rather than support it (partially). But Novell sold out.
Sharepoint, OOXML, XPS, SOA (REST) [1, 2, 3, 4], and DRM-’boosted’ objects (maybe HD) are other components of tomorrow’s lockin. One needn’t look very far to find yet another component, which was officially announced just days ago — unified communications.
“We’re moving along the continuum that started way back when in the CTI days,” says Robins. “And now, with the computing horsepower that exists, the standardization of IP as the protocol of choice in terms of communications, we’ve now got the foundation for this to really propagate everywhere. It’s a wonderful thing. The value that Microsoft brings to the table is that they’re really the 800-pound gorilla, especially in the PC desktop computing space. So Microsoft is in a position to really make this happen in a very big way. One day all PBXs will interoperate with the Microsoft communications platform, and we’ll see what happens on the mobile side.”
Here is a new interview with Linspire’s new CEO, which doesn’t mention the deal with Microsoft. Larry Kettler talks only about the product and the privately-held company in reply to questions. Linspire is probably lucky enough to have a wealthy founder, so it might stay around for a while. On the contrary, SCO is running out of money. It is finding out the hard way that litigation doesn’t pay off. Au contraire — it costs plenty.
The never ending story surrounding SCO’s litigation over alleged copyright infringements contained in Linux as well as the copyrights to Unix has taken yet another twist: The SCO Group, currently subject to proceedings under Chapter 11, is causing a stir as details in relation to their payment obligations emerge.
That is the cost of going against the spirit of the technology-savvy community. Xandros and Novell are yet to face the wrath of the customer at its worst form. Without the supplier (programmer), these companies are worthless. They have limited control.
There are some interesting predictions going about. It’s not only the far-fetched vision of Microsoft acquiring Novell that leads to scary speculations. In fact, have a look at this new one.
Analysts have suggested that McAfee would be better off merging with a larger firm such as HP or Novell.
McAfee is far too expensive for Ron Hovsepian’s ongoing shopping spree [1, ] and the two companies have too little in common. However, it is something to bear in mind for strategic reasons.
Remember XenSource, which is no more? It was acquired by Citrix, probably for Windows and Microsoft to have. Analysts were baffled. Why would Citrix want Xen? Only Microsoft seems to benefit from such a move and, as the references as the bottom show, Citrix and Microsoft are probably in cahoot. A new article from the Register still fails to give a compelling and specific reason why Citrix should buy Xen.
With XenSource, Citrix completed this push, adding technology that sits at the very heart of the data center. Now, according to Wasson, Citrix is well poised to continue its mission of becoming a “successful, multi-billion dollar software company.”
The moral of the story is that there’s more than business sense and logic to acquisitions. It has a lot to do with business relationships, which can also be personal and involve private conspiracies.
Patches are clearly an unscientific way to quantify overall contribution, but if changesets were anything to go by, then Novell’s Justin Steinman should hold his tongue the next time he intends to spit out anti-Red Hat messages. In the mailing lists, Greg KH (of Novell) talks about the contributions made to the Linux kernel. Novell’s position seems to be quite respectable, but given the size of Novell as a Linux-oriented company, one might expect them to be positioned higher up the ladder.
According to Greg’s email, organizations that contributed more than 100 changesets to the recently released 2.6.23 kernel included: Red Hat with 827 changesets (11.7%), IBM with 557 changesets (7.9%), the Linux Foundation with 528 changesets (7.5%), Novell with 449 changesets (6.3%), Intel with 242 changesets (3.4%), Oracle with 158 changesets (2.2%), MIPS Technologies with 143 changesets (2%), Nokia with 133 changesets (1.9%), and NetApp with 119 changesets (1.7%).
SCO is conspicously missing. Didn’t they say that Linux stole their code? [sarcasm /]
The question: what are the options for a Novell engineer?
Speaking of certification, a company called Messaging Architects has gained a “Novell Ready” status and it will work with Novell’s GroupWise.
Messaging Architects, the email risk management company, today announced its family of solutions for Novell GroupWise are “Novell Ready,” fully tested and compatible with GroupWise. Messaging Architects’ product portfolio includes GWArchive and M+Guardian, its flagship enterprise-class solutions for Compliance and Security, as well as GWExtranet and GWTreecast, its add-on enhancements for GroupWise.
Novell has introduced quite a few products and other companies have introduced products that are tied to Novell. There are also some success stories. Here is a rough per-product breakdown.
ArcMail Technology, a leading provider of email archiving and management technology, today announced a partnership with Nexic that will integrate Nexic Discovery’s exporting engine for Novell GroupWise with the ArcMail Defender email archiving appliance.
Because it is tightly integrated with Novell GroupWise, it also provides a simple and affordable e-mail archival solution for organizations facing SOX, FRCP, SEC, HIPPA, and other regulatory requirements.
Migration to GNU/Linux and GroupWise is also said to encouraging. There is another migration case study.
The most recent migration the company conducted was for the Bank of Tanzania.
Novell announced the availability of Novell® ZENworks® 7.2 Linux Management, giving customers a powerful new option for their enterprise Linux* management needs. This latest version, which includes support for SUSE® Linux Enterprise 10 from Novell and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is the only policy-based solution on the market that offers multi-vendor Linux support.
Novell Suse Linux is positioning itself to be the corporate Linux of choice for today’s multi-OS corporation thanks to a series of agreements with companies such as SAP and Microsoft.
In particular Novell is interested in the government sector in Asia, which features large scale deployments where a full-featured desktop may not be necessary.
Open Enterprise Server (OES)
The new version of OES has completed a long-anticipated transition to Linux.
Novell Open Enterprise Server combines proven workgroup services from Novell with SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server, completing the Open Enterprise Server shift to providing workgroup services entirely on Linux*.
Last week, Novell Inc. announced that it would allow Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) to run as a paravirtualized Xen guest on top of SUSE Enterprise Linux Server (SLES). Analysts lauded the move for the backward compatibility it provides to existing NetWare customers running or migrating to OES 2.
GWAVACon
YouTube contains heaps of new videos from GWAVACon, including this one, for example.
SMB Products
In what seems to be similar to an announcement made some months ago, Novell takes the curtains off a desktop-to-server software suite.
Novell suite provides small businesses with productivity tools and an IT foundation at a fraction of the cost of other software bundles
Best Use of Novell Solutions by the Service Desk Awarded to the service desk that best demonstrates integration with Novell technologies to further improve service desk delivery to an organisation, the winner of this category was London Borough of Hillingdon, the westernmost borough in Greater London, established in 1965 and serving a population of more than 250,000.
The winning organisation has used a combination of Touchpaper and Novell technologies (including Groupwise and ZENWorks) to drive a four-fold increase in the number of service incidents that they have been able to resolve at first point of contact alongside a 45% improvement in overall response times for all incidents recorded and an increase in excess of 700% in the numbers of work requests received and managed. Using Novell’s ZENWorks, they have dramatically reduced the number of desk visits required to deploy new applications and software updates.
Holonyx Inc. has released RESTORE, a Linux-based enterprise network backup and recovery solution for Windows, Novell NetWare, Mac OS X, Unix and Linux systems. RESTORE is scalable to a complete backup solution for multiple workstations and servers in distributed network environments. RESTORE is also being released as an open source project. R
Last week, Ron Hovsepian himself wrote an article for ECT.
Working together, we can take Linux and open source to new heights, and in the process, realize the vision of Linux that we all set out to achieve. We can accelerate the adoption of Linux and create new value for both the community and its customers.
An interview with Ron Hovsepian has just been published as well.
Speaking exclusively to siliconrepublic.com, Ron Hovsepian (pictured) revealed that the interoperability alliance made strategic sense for both companies and that now they are working on at least 17 new areas of business.
[...]
Since the pact, Hovesepian said that the two companies have managed to put the dispute of the last 20 years behind them, although Novell and Sun were key witnesses in the EU Court of First Instance which recently dismissed Microsoft’s appeal against a US$613m (€441m) fine for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the global software business.
Memories of Google’s CEO
Interesting details about a former Novell CEO, Eric Schmidt, were included in one of Cringely’s latest articles.
At Novell Schmidt attempted to take control of a company that had been a cult of personality — Ray Noorda’s. Logic had never prevailed at Novell and Schmidt, as an outsider, was never in a position to really impose it. Unlike at Sun, Schmidt hadn’t grown up with the Novell people, and having not gone to BYU, he had little in common with their culture. Schmidt was smart enough for the job but turning around Novell couldn’t be accomplished on brainpower alone. The guy never had a chance.
openSUSE 10.3 is a mature, stable, free Linux distribution. Pros include excellent documentation and a wide selection of up-to-date software. Its YaST configuration utility offers ease-of-use matched perhaps only by Mandriva’s Control Center. It seems as fast and responsive as any other modern Linux distro, even on my rather underpowered test box (except for the 3D desktop effects, which is to be expected).
OpenSUSE 10.3 was released last week, and I quickly downloaded the new version to update my two openSUSE boxes. Here’s a chronicle of the updates and some problems that surfaced during the process.
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