Novell Reportedly Taking Bids From Up To 20 Companies

Degrees writes "Although Novell rejected the bid from Elliott Associates earlier this year, reports now indicate Novell has decided to embrace the inevitable. According to the Wall Street Journal (sub. required): 'As many as 20 companies have expressed interest in Novell, according to people familiar with the matter. Most, if not all, of the companies expected to lodge serious bids are private equity firms. ... Novell has four separate businesses, each of which could be attractive to a rival technology company. However, it's unlikely that a tech company would bid for all of Novell, these people said. Private equity firms, however, could break up Novell and either sell off the pieces or run them as standalone businesses.' Are there any companies that don't have an enterprise grade Linux distribution, and ought to? Ditto workstation management, directory services, legacy email, and virtualization suite?"

Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Linux, here we come!

Re:I hope this doesn't harm the Linux distro marke

[ozmanjusri]

Obviously a sale of Novell doesn't necessarily imply any change for their Linux business

Actually, I expect one of their main partners to strongly encourage a litigious patent troll to buy them.

They would be in a very strong position to torpedo Linux adoption for years, if not decades.

Re:Karma

[CosaNostra Pizza Inc]

same here. I actually switched from Suse to Ubuntu before Novelle made the "Microsoft" move.

Welcome to the modern Capitalism (FinCap)

[boorack]

Then i WOULD be nervous. If Novell accepts bid from private equity firm, then we can say goodbye to them. Typical scenario in company takeover by private equity firms is extracting whatever capital company has by any means. In such scenario you can safely assume that Novell will be stripped out of things having some value (that can be easily sold), saddled with huge debt and private equity fund will extract all this capital via some form of (huge) dividend. Remaining carcass is typically sold to some fool investor who then sees it bankrupting. While I don't like Novell too much (after that Microsoft debacle), I'm also worried. I suppose that some of their patents will be sold to whoever offers better price. If it will be some patent troll , then we may see problems ahead. Private equity fund (a.k.a financial vulture) managers won't give a crap about it.

Re:Karma

[maxume]

If you are using a Linux system, you are probably touching them with your kernel.

Re:Microsoft

[fustakrakich]

nteresting idea, but I'm not seeing a business argument for it.

Patents! Patents! Patents!

IBM

[John Hasler]

> Are there any companies that don't have an enterprise grade Linux
> distribution, and ought to?

IBM, not that I know of any evidence that they are interested.

Re:People seem confused

[demachina]

What it actually means depends on whether they are bought by an ethical private equity firm or the other kind. If its the other kind they will use Novell as a vehicle to borrow a couple billion dollars which they will use to create an instant and imaginary profit for themselves, then they will cut and run leaving Novell saddled with a crushing debt burden which will result in layoffs and eventual collapse.

Sad to say that is frequently how the magnates of our financial system work now. They aren't out to build successful companies that make things, employ people, and make money the old fashioned way, they are out to make the quickest buck they can with no regard for the wreckage they leave in the wake.

Wish S.u.S.E could be spun off

[dpolak]

I wish S.u.S.E. could go back to the way they were before Novell did the damage they did. I dealt with them when they were independent and they were fantastic. Maybe if I put on the ruby slippers and click the heels three times.....

Re:Market

[nurb432]

Considering most people are a Microsoft centric shop out in the 'real world', this political issue is a non issue. Sure, *I* prefer open solutions, but large corporations at a management level really don't care.

Smaller shops, perhaps it might make a difference, if they understand it.

Re:Microsoft

[ducomputergeek]

Clearly owning the Unix copyrights has to be worth something.

Re:Karma

[TheRaven64]

If you're not using a Linux system, but are reading Slashdot, you've probably used OpenOffice.org. Most of the work on making it less slow was done by Novell. Last time I checked, 80% of OO.o contributions came from Sun, 15% from Novell, and 5% from everyone else combined.