Novell's CEO appears to have taken a less familiar hat. In his new interview with the Linux Foundation (Jim Zemlin actually) he emits some 'fast facts' akin to the ones which are organically generated by PR folks. Without delving into the depths of Novell's old chorus ("Novell congratulates self for snogging Microsoft"), consider these statements from Hovsepian:

“Novell grew 200% in the SUSE Linux marketplace year-over-year from an invoicing perspective,” he said. The overall market is growing at 22% according to IDC,” and “we’re taking some market share from our competitors.

“The key to that success has been better Windows co-existance, he insisted. “The realities of a customer’s world is that they’re going to live with both for a long time in our lifetime,” and the Microsoft relationship helps with that.

Let's go through some more facts again. These are facts which Novell refuses to mention or admit because they don't fit its rah-rah PR pitch.

• Novell is cooking the books to fake Linux growth at Novell
• Novell tells you nothing about the Microsoft coupons that run out (temporary boost)
• In the text above, Novell cites IDC, which to a large extent is just a pay-to-say analyst which gets fed data matching the required hypothesis
• Microsoft's relationship with Novell is said to have caused Novell to lose customers, not the other way around
• A large number of Novell employees/jobs will be axed later this year

There are many more points that could be made. The bottom line is that, as the old saying goes, "PR lies." That's just what Hovsepain appears to be doing here. Sometime a lie is called an "embellishment". ⬆