Sun Pondering Buying Novell 400
Krafty Koder writes "ZDNet are reporting that Sun are considering purchasing Novell and thus gain SUSE Linux.
'With our balance sheet, we're considering all our options,' Sun chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz said in an interview on Sunday regarding the possibility of acquiring Novell.
'What would owning the operating system on which IBM is dependent be worth? History would suggest we look to Microsoft for comparisons,' he said."
They're in for an unpleasant surprise... (Score:4, Informative)
Mod up Parent (Score:1, Informative)
SUNW: 2 billion in cash / NOVL : 3 billion cap (Score:4, Informative)
speaking of big news (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/news_a_events
Re:IBM isn't dependent on Suse (Score:3, Informative)
Well, not all of SuSE's tools are GPL. I know that YaST for example wasn't for a long time. I've heard ramblings that YaST will be open sourced, but if there are any other tools then IBM would have to develop their own replacements for them. Not that I believe that's out of their abilities in the slightest, but the advantage that IBM has of getting Linux from another party who is active in the whole scene is that IBM doesn't have to pay quite as much attention as they would have if they did it all in house, and they don't have to maintain a system for non-paying distribution users to report back bugs and development issues, leaving that currently to SuSE.
IBM would probably be better off looking to another distribution if SuSE were damaged in some way. It'd be easier and a lot better for long term development.
The Enterprise (Score:1, Informative)
That's where the money is, baby.
Re:"Owning the operating system"? (Score:4, Informative)
No, they didn't "see" any problems with Linux IP. They said they had complete, perpetual, and air-tight licenses for Unix that would allow them to easily indemnify their customers against any attack from "Unix IP holders". Sun long ago made sure to cover their bases on Unix IP, so SCO would literally not be able to get past a preliminary hearing if they were to sue Sun.
What they would be buying... (Score:3, Informative)
They would also get Ximian, which controls Mono and Evolution.
Keep in mind that Sun are already big gnome contributors.
And of course, Suse.
Re:Doesn't anyone proofread these submissions? (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you're in the U.K., where the convention is as written. They tend to refer to companies as collective nouns.
The U.S. (and its standards of English) are not the world.
Re:Good Riddence... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They're in for an unpleasant surprise... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:IBM isn't dependent on Suse (Score:2, Informative)
YaST is already open-sourced. Has been for quite some time now.
Re:"Owning the operating system"? (Score:2, Informative)
Or so my friend says.
Bad move for Sun (Score:3, Informative)
In addition to slashdotters thinking its a bad idea, the Wall Street Journal Online has a follow-up report Novell Acquisition Would Be Bad Move for Sun, Analyst Says [wsj.com]
Among the reasons the analyst lists (in case you don't want to subscribe to the WSJ Online):
I would add:
I should also mention Novell recently raised $600 million in a corporate debt offering, about $125 million of which was for a stock buyback (not sure how that might affect their takeover prospects). The rest was for future acquisitions, the rumor on Wall Street is that the inside favorite for a future Novell acquisition is MySQL AB.
That would be a great acquisition, adding MySQL to their software stack would complement both Novell's Mono and J2EE application server offerings. My personal favorite other acquisition would be Zend, giving Novell a LAMP application server software stack!
Re:Perhaps this will immunize sun (Score:3, Informative)
"Excluding one-time items, the network-computer and software company lost $169 million, or 5 cents a share" - CBS MarketWatch
Translation: "Excluding the income that put Sun into profit, they made a loss." Well, honestly.
Their cash assets alone are over 7 billion.
My understanding is that Visual Basic is still the most widely used development language. Unless... perhaps you are confusing Java with C#?
My mistake. I meant most widely requested development language in the Job market. I should have deleted the word 'used'. Visual Basic is second, and C# is not that widely used so far, especially in non-US development. At least as far as I can tell from job searches and market reports. It surprised me!
Linux is not an "implementation of UNIX(TM)"
OK - rephrase 'UNIX-like system' or 'system that does almost everything that UNIX does with lots of the same libraries, directories and commands, but with a better licence'.
Re:Did I miss something?? (Score:2, Informative)
I think you may be remembering that right after the Solaris open source announcement was made, someone else (without approval) said Java would also be open sourced. That statement was retracted with a statement that this option (for Java) is still under consideration but nothing firm has been decided yet.
Re:Sun sending message to IBM? (Score:3, Informative)
IBM are one of Suns' main competitors. Both sell PC servers, RISC servers, Linux, Unix®, Java, software support, a range of "middleware" software and IT consultancy services.
Sun, like all companies that actually have competition, will jostle for position with, make statements about and generally try to best and outsmart their competition. That's how competition works...
Re:Doesn't anyone proofread these submissions? (Score:3, Informative)
After that, England was never invaded again, and the language never again underwent radical changes, just slow evolution, through immigration, exploration and colonisation. Which is why Chaucer's Canterbury tales, 700 hundred odd years old, are still readable, even to a modern english speaker.
I cant think of any differences in modern english that are a product of the USA, other than some trivial spelling and usage differences.
Re:Perhaps this will immunize sun (Score:3, Informative)
I generally agree with you. Let me add a few points:
You are right that Microsoft did not start the PC revolution that almost killed IBM, and later converted it in the humble giant. They were at the right place at the right time, and "sourced" an OS for the IBM PC (QDOS) from another company. They were a UNIX for PC (Xenix) shop (and Basic interpreter, ...etc.) up until then.
I meant that they came in later after the then evil empire IBM tried to turn the PC proprietary by the Microchannel architecture (MCA) and OS/2. Then Compaq decided to not play catchup and innovate, and were in the market with the first 386 based on the then standard architecture. Microsoft had a fall out with IBM, and gave OS/2 to them, and decided to go it with Windows, then the rest was history.
Microsoft may well have been a "bad" company, but they were seen by many as a force against the bigger evil (IBM) at the time. Something to undermine the monopoly of the big bad guy at the time. Sort of like the flawed mentality of: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". This happens in day to day relationship, in politics, and world affairs, as well as in business.