Bonum Certa Men Certa

Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part III: Novell Report, Schmidtism and More

SCO



Most of this story/saga was already covered in the middle of the week, but here is an unexciting addition from Groklaw. It's about bills.

More bills are in for SCO to pay in the bankruptcy. Tanner, Berger Singerman, and Pachulski Stang all have filed for mo' money. From the bills, we can discern through a glass darkly what's been going on. Here's what: the Swiss SUSE arbitration shows activity. You can find it on page 11 of Berger's Exhibit A, where we see a notation that SUSE has filed a "submission" to the tribunal. It references "SUSE arbitration statement to tribunal" also, but it could be the same thing. This happened on 10/1/08.


Finance



Speaking of money, Novell's business was analyzed by Companies and Markets.



Novell continues its transition after several significant developments in 2006, the partnership with Microsoft and the shift from a strategy for using the Open Enterprise Server (OES) product released in 2005. As a result of the strategy shift in the OES product, Novell is focusing on the other two large units, security and management to drive overall top line growth.


Zenworks



Here is a new article about Zenworks.

Novell's Zenworks is its suite of automated system management tools for the end-user environment and datacentre.

Zenworks is really two main products. One is Configuration Manager, which manages desktops or servers running Microsoft Windows or Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise (SLE) platforms - a throwback to Novell's local area network (Lan) management origins. The other is Zenworks Orchestrator, which manages datacentre server technologies and the associated issues.


A new case study might be this implementation story from Marion Community Schools.

The Marion Community Schools Technology Department has finished implementing Novell ZENworks throughout the district, an important piece of the network infrastructure that will make it possible to upgrade and make repairs from a central location within the district. This drastically improves the efficiency of the IT department and is another step toward taking full advantage of our fiber optic wide-area network that was installed at MCS in the summer of 2006.


Mail



Groupwise is still where it's at for Novell. Compatibility with it is the main reason for having it mentioned every now and then. It's said to be supported by Google's Android, which uses Linux and Java.

I was pleased to read that CompanionLink Sofware now has a way for you to sync your PIM data (no email) between Outlook, Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop, Novell Groupwise, and other clients to your T-Mobile G1. CompanionLink for Google Android is available now for US$29.95 with a free 14-day trial.


GWAVA made this appearance in another press release.

Over the past six years, Marvin Huffaker Consulting has earned a reputation for top-notch services in messaging and collaboration. As a Novell platinum partner, they specialize in GroupWise-based solutions. They have several hundred active customers with a wide variety of needs and configurations.


Identity Management



Novell's relationship with Fujitsu [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 returns to light in the following press release about digital rights.

"We look forward to extending to Dolphin Digital Media the current and new brands to be developed as a result of this six-picture slate so that Dolphin Digital Media can create 'secure' branded social networking websites built around these films. Dolphin Digital Media's proprietary Internet safety technology, developed in association with Fujitsu and Novell, is based on fingerprint identification, and provides a safe online atmosphere for our young audiences, while providing parents the added assurance that their children are utilizing the Internet in a protected online environment."


Novell was also mentioned here for its role in the Information Card Foundation.

Parity managed an open source project to work with tech companies to design a single standard for user-controlled release of information. And this past June, they helped form the Information Card Foundation, a consortium of tech companies including big names like Google, Microsoft, Novell and Pay Pal.


People



Novell's former CEO, Eric Schmidt, declined and dismissed apparent interest in making him the States' chief technical officer. Will it be Vinton Cerf of Google instead?

On Friday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he wasn’t interested (Techmeme). Schmidt told Mad Money’s Jim Cramer that he’s happy to stick around at Google. And why would Schmidt take the job? Schmidt knows mission impossible when he sees it. He was at Novell and Sun and has the scars from battling Microsoft.


David Bradford used to work for Novell and report to Eric Schmidt. He has just entered Fusion-io.

Bradford brings more than 30 years experience in the fields of law and technology to Fusion-io, including 15 years spent at Novell, Inc., where his responsibilities spanned four different divisions, including legal, government relations, business development and security. Prior to leaving Novell, in his role as senior vice-president and general counsel, Bradford reported directly to Eric Schmidt.


For some history, see this and also some background relating to SCO

How about this career change from Novell to the milk industry?

While the company retained some of its original staff, it ended up hiring most from scratch. Close says this was primarily because the current staff either did not have the requisite skill set -- for example, they were Novell engineers, but Danone no longer had Novell in place -- or were unwilling to relocate to New Hampshire. "We probably kept three or four people who decided to move up here," he says. "The rest transitioned off in about a 12-month period."


Partners



Novell's partnership with SAP is far from news and Novell will attend its Middle East event.

Some of SAPSAPLoading...'s partners include global industry giants such as IBM, Siemens, Deloitte, WiPro, Novell, as well as regional IT firms such Al Bilad Arabia, Trust Technical Services, IHS, MindTree, MENA Systems, Report Edge, and IT Worx, ISS Consulting, ProCons-4IT, CIC, L&T Infotech, CCS IT Services, BizAps.


Novell has also had a close relationship with AMD and it was mentioned as a key partner in this report about the launch of the Shanghai processor.

He added that AMD Opteron processor represents the most dramatic performance and performance-per-watt increases for AMD products since the introduction of the world's first x86 dual core processor by AMD nearly four years ago. AMD's major technology partners include HP, Microsoft, Dell, Sun, IBM, Citrix and Novell.


Utah



Here is an historical story from Utah. It contains some of the familiar local superstars, including Novell. [via Groklaw]

Bastian was a young father and director of the BYU marching band when he took a computer science class from Ashton. Ashton became Bastian's thesis adviser. Together, they drafted a precocious computer program with early pull-down menus and function keys tailored for personal computers. In 1978, they founded WordPerfect. Sixteen years later, they sold to Novell.

At the same time, Bastian's marriage was coming apart. Things haven't been the same between them since.


The following bizarre video showed up in YouTube last night. Novell is in it.



It's kind of cheesy, is it not?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
 
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day