Microsoft-Novell Relationship Hits the Skids 194
Anonymous writes "According to Channelweb, the bloom might be off the rose in the Novell-Microsoft relationship: the two companies didn't sign a single, solitary large customer to a Novell Linux deal during the most recent quarter. 'So Novell, one of the biggest Linux distributors in the world, and Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in world history, couldn't find a single large customer on Planet Earth to buy into Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server software. Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian has stepped up and, rather than point fingers at Microsoft for that performance, put the blame on his company and its inability to strengthen its reseller channel.'"
Well, seriously... (Score:2, Insightful)
Who buys Linux in an economy like this?
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why would it be any kind of threat to apple? You are talking about hardware, not software patents.
Re:You get serious (Score:5, Insightful)
That's quite a violent approach to the problem. Invalidate all software patents? I don't think Apple would approve, as that would be the end of their business.
How do you figure? Half of Apple's revenue is from their PC business where their largest differentiator is OS X, protected more by copyright than patents. Then there is their iPod business, where hardware patents are the major protection. Between hardware patents, copyright, and trademark protections, I don't see Apple being in much trouble if software patents are invalidated... even if it went to extremes and included UI's that include a mix of hardware and software, ala multi-touch.
But you really meant invalidate all of MSFT's right?
Why would you make such an assumption? That's not at all what he said, nor does it even make sense.
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And good riddance to them too. Thanks for encouraging us all
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I hope you enjoy "open-source" pharmaceuticals...
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Not at all. You have to give up enough information so someone "skilled in the art" can reproduce the item. This in no way means blueprints or exact manufacturing instructions.
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
People still buy Red Hat. Check their numbers.
Novell was warned (since the beginning of its relationship with Microsoft) that Microsoft 'partners' consistently get stabbed in the back. It took Novell a couple of years to take the toll.
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft 'partners' consistently get stabbed in the back. It took Novell a couple of years to take the toll.
Not limited to Microsoft, if "partner" implies some sort of revenue sharing then in bad times you'll find they work find hard to find solutions not involving their partners. In ways it can be more frustrating than a straight-up competitor that you know where you got.
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
Novell was warned (since the beginning of its relationship with Microsoft) that Microsoft 'partners' consistently get stabbed in the back. It took Novell a couple of years to take the toll.
Not to mention that Novell should have known damned well that Linux is the Microsoft alternative. If you tie it in with Microsoft, suddenly it's the Microsoft partner, not the Microsoft alternative. TONS of Linux customers went to Linux specifically to avoid Microsoft lock-in. They're trying to get further away! It's pretty fucking sad when Novell and Sun are both in Microsoft's back pocket.
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:5, Interesting)
Novell should have already known the don't be a Microsoft Partner lesson. Novell owned WordPerfect when Windows 95 came out. Microsoft gave so much incorrect documentation to the WordPerfect developers, that the lawsuit [theregister.co.uk] was still going on 13 years later. In fact, the lawsuit on-going when Novell signed the Linux deal with Microsoft.
Yeah, but (Score:2)
How long will it take their phone partners to learn the Sendo [theregister.co.uk] lesson?
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what are the new numbers?
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How did Microsoft "stab Novell in the back"? From what I can tell, this deal has only been good for them since it briefly brought the promise of better interoperability with Windows, which didn't happen because Novell dropped the ball and didn't produce anything. SLED really doesn't have better AD compatibility than any other version of Linux. Novell has simply failed to do anything interesting with SuSE. As you pointed out, Novell has lost the corporate market to Red Hat, and that has nothing to do with Mi
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who buys a proprietary operating system in any economy when you can download and use linux free. And if you need support then you can pay for linux support without ever having to pay for a license, unlike our favorite proprietary software vendors that charge for a license and for support and in in some cases for every client connection to said software. I guess you can't fix stupid.
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone who wants to do anything in a GUI? Linux makes a powerful server, but its desktop applications (even OpenOffice) lag far behind their proprietary counterparts in features, or are non-existent (where's the Photoshop or InDesign clones?).
Uh, the photoshop clone is called the gimp. Whether you think it's a valid replacement or not, it has all the same features, except the most important one: Adobe plugin support. You can do the things you can do in InDesign in Scribus or Inkscape, but neither one is much of a contender.
On the other hand, since less than 1% of the world's population needs to use those two programs to get their work done (graphic artists are a severe minority in computer professionals - a term pretty loosely applied there, since most of them are about as computer-savvy as a pygmy warrior from ubangme) this is probably not a big deal. Most people need an office suite that will let them write papers and letters, and a web browser, and a media player. Since any operating system offers all of these, Linux will work for most people. Kind of like Electric cars... they can only meet the needs of what, 95% of the population? How terrible!
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Sadly, looks like Gimp is a weenie next to Photoshop CS4.
Just how many LOLCAT images will the average computer user be creating today? I'd wager that the speed difference between the Gimp and PS isn't worth ~450 USD to your average computer user.
Hell, the Gimp is more than enough for what little graphics editing I'm called upon to do in the course of my duties to my employer.
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This is discussion about Linux Enterprise offerings.
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You underestimate the importance of games.
No, I don't. You overestimate the importance of big-ticket games.
Gamers are forced to keep Windows installed, and it's a pain to dual-boot.
"Gamers" are a tiny minority. While over 70% of the American public plays video games, most of those aren't Crysis players. They're playing games on their cellphone, or they play freecell or some other solitaire game, which you can get a better implementation of for Linux... or they play flash games, which work fine on x86 and x86_64 Linux.
There are of course lots of middle aged people who don't play games or who are satisfied with simple ones, but they won't start any great migration.
What do you mean "great migration"? Ever heard of a concept called the "tipping point"?
Youths are the key, and the gamers especially.
Understanding the
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone who wants to do anything in a GUI?
What are you talking about? Installing? Almost all distros have a GUI for installing. Changing settings? For any day-to-day settings, there is a GUI for that. Etc. About the only time you don't have a GUI (assuming of course that this is on Ubuntu or similar, not Gentoo or Arch) is when you change a setting that to do the approximate Windows setting you would edit the registry.
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Changing settings? For any day-to-day settings, there is a GUI for that. Etc. About the only time you don't have a GUI (assuming of course that this is on Ubuntu or similar, not Gentoo or Arch) is when you change a setting that to do the approximate Windows setting you would edit the registry
My experience has been that, in practice, you're going to spend a lot more time configuring text files in Linux than editing the registry on Windows if you're a user, especially a "Power" user. The previous example of adding a Ubuntu system to a domain that involved editing 4 text files bears this out. My opinion is that both the registry and config files (the Windows equivalent are .ini files) have their advantages and disadvantages. The big thing the registry has is centralization and the ability to SEARC
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All-Intel chipset and you'll be very happy indeed. Except your graphics will be crappy. But they'll work!
(Do you have links to where you asked? I'm somewhat surprised you got no response.)
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Thanks. I had guessed as much about intel, which is a pity because AMD looks better in the low midrange I'm aiming at. I'll need a discrete vidcard though, and especially sound through HDMI. Is ati 48xx ok ?
Also I couldn't get Wifi to work last time around. Is it OK now or do we still need a specific chipset ? All soundchips work even the Asus-specific Realtek ALC1200 ?
I'm sorry it was a while back I deleted the bookmarks to the forums requests. I actually got 2 answers indeed: one directing me to a US-only
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No idea, sorry. All-Intel chipsets are good basically because Intel give a damn about Linux drivers. I live on laptops, and crappy Intel graphics and OK Intel wifi means I have a working system.
With Linux: if your hardware has drivers, you get Mac-like levels of "it just works." If it doesn't, you have a world of pain. This will change only as manufacturers start supporting Linux properly. Which is slowly happening - Dell is gently pressuring suppliers to make the parts work with Linux.
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for cpu - AMD is fine. The 'buy intel' generally applies to other parts of the hardware - video, ethernet, wifi...
I have a dell with nvidia, who-knows-what wifi (at least I haven't had to find out) and broadcom ethernet.
needless to say - "It Just Works" - apart from nvidia - but even that is not quite the pain it used to be.
So, generally, get intel components and you'll get a mac-like 'it just works'. if you want to get special hardware, any cpu should be fine, ethernet should 99.9% of the time be fine, vid
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WiFi hard?
Again, if you get a supported card then it really does just work. If you don't then you might have to resort to NDISwrapper. On 4 different laptops now I've had "it just works" with a variety of different wireless hardware. And with network-manager you don't even have to screw around with supplicant settings any more.
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It has been my experience (YMMV) that SuSe has better hardware support than some of the others.
On the other hand, I think it is Debian, possibly Ubuntu, that has a licensed package of codecs for stuff like mp3s and other files. With SuSe, the best method for me is to add the Pacman reository (SuSe makes it really easy) but those are codecs and not drivers.
The only 3rd party driver I've needed for SuSe has been the standard Nvidia
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I'd really like to explore, though the learning curve is steep. It's very frustrating going from DOS/Windows expert to Linux noob: finding an editor, then finding the config files, finding the info... Things I can do in 2 minutes in Windows take me hours, when they work at all.
I was thinking of going Ubuntu because of its success. PLus Wine for a bit of light gaming.
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At least in SuSe you can open the yast2 control center and configure the network stuff, open holes in the firewall for various services, configure your display and such, set up users, and basically everything you can do in Microsoft's control panel and more.
I haven't done anything with Wine but
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Also, be sure to check out Linux Journal. It's not very expensive and there are lots of good how-to articles.
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I'm in the "should use Linux" case you describe. Every year, I try to install Linux. Every year, I run into a hardware compatibility/driver roadblock, and fail to solve it after a handful of hours. I'm motivated to keep trying, even went as far as requesting advice on which components to use (cpu, gpu, sound...) for an easy Ubuntu install on a couple of Ubuntu forums: no useful answer.
that's strange because that worked for me.
- first time
- with debian
- on a powerpc
- in 2002
and later, with various pcs, for a
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that's strange because that worked for me.
Look. The PP hasn't specified *any* hardware details. He also mentioned that he's not willing to spend more than a couple of hours trying to get something to work.
*Any* of us who have used Linux on more than one hardware configuration *know* that there are sometimes issues that can take *quite* a lot of digging to sort out. Naturally, once they've been sorted out, they're sorted for good. The PP's unwilling to put that time in, so his issues remain unresolved. That's his choice.
This "it worked for me on har
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This is trolling.
My personal experience in trying to use Linux is probably more typical. I tried installing it starting about 10 years ago and had pain for a few years. Starting about 5 years ago the distros improved and everything I have tried to install it on since has "just worked" (sometimes
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I know that we get the "Holy shit LEENUX SUXX, I CAN'T CONFGURE IT!!11" trolls in here on a regular basis. However, responses like these indicate to me that he's operating in good faith:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1160325&cid=27189385 [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1160325&cid=27189417 [slashdot.org] [1]
He *may* be trolling. Perhaps my troll-dar is poorly calibrated. Regardless... if he's looking for a *really* productive conversation, he's certainly not being sufficiently informative.
I'm not sure that
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For the past few years I haven't had to resort to any configuration wizardry to get Linux running. Mostly it 'just works' and if I need help, I just do a Google search and usually find the answer quickly from one of the many Li
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...get pissed off because of the damned dependency hell...
Examples?
Be aware that you're talking to a Gentoo Linux veteran of seven years. :)
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What examples? Posts like that are made by Microsoft marketing people.
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Posts like that are made by Microsoft marketing people.
This is quite possible. I do try to give such posters the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they've run into a *really* interesting problem. (Or maybe they've run into something like Gentoo's [kinda recent and unavoidable from *any* way you looked at it] e2fsprogs-libs, ss, and com_err upgrade issue that could have been easily solved with five minutes with Google. *shrug*)
Anyway. If the posters in question don't reply back with anything that's sensible, they get killfiled.
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I have used Linux full time for the past 5 years on many different machines (primarily Ubuntu) and have never had a dependency problem. This includes machines where I do install lots of extra software (graphics, video, office apps, software development, etc.).
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for GUIs I can safely say my Ubuntu install is far less consistent than the Windows install I have in a VM.
What are you on? Just take a look at most Windows programs, different looks everywhere. (there used to be a nice screenshot that someone took highlighting this fact, but I can't seem to find it on google at the moment) Just look at Office 2007, it has a different look then XP's native toolkit, that looks different then Windows Live Messenger, that looks different then Visual Studio, etc. Mix MS's own inconsistency (remember that aside from the base GNU toolkits, almost all the software is from different people/organizations) with programs almost every Windows user uses (iTunes, etc) and you get tons of interfaces. On the other hand, most Linux software is either QT or GTK.
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Linux applications just aren't up to snuff.
Examples? My computer usage is undoubtedly atypical (and likely very different from yours). I find the packages provided by Gentoo Linux to be more than adequate for my needs. :)
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where's the Photoshop or InDesign clones?
Here [gimp.org] and here [scribus.net]. I've not used Scribus much, but I actually prefer GIMP to Photoshop in most cases.
I agree that Open Office really just isn't up to par, though. Open Office is fine, or even better than MS Office for a casual user, but it fails pretty badly for a serious user.
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...it fails pretty badly for a serious user.
A serious Word user, or a serious wordprocessing/layout program user?
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Thanks for chiming in with your content free post. You're not even the guy that I was talking to. :)
If you'd care to set out some examples (or link me to the relevant dox) you'd make me a very happy man.
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The catch with that thinking, is the reality of the situation is that upwards of 90% of the desks just need a basic office suite to do there job, maybe that stretches in database entry as well but again OS makes very little difference when it comes to major databases apart from per seat cost, performance issues and stability.
So if they were only selling windows OS for photo shop users approximately how many seats would that be and how long before Adobe abandon M$ before M$ stabs them in the back, the fro
Re:Well, seriously... (Score:4, Insightful)
Who buys Linux in an economy like this?
Lots of people, including the fortune 100 company i work for. In fact, the linux demand has gotten much stronger, as my employer is dumping old school platforms and moving to linux in the server room.
The tough times motivate them to maximize their bang for the buck.
Oh, and trust me, big companies want the official paid support - so that basically means Novell or Redhat, though debian/ubuntu are there in some cases now too, since you can purchase support for either one from HP now.
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Or Oracle: if you're rolling out a lot of 11g databases or going with a RAC cluster; as Oracle Enterprise Linux = Redhat = CentOS, plus a few extras like OCFS2 packaged with it.
Canonical with Ubuntu Server could yet be a force to be reckoned with as it matures, if the support price is competitive with the other guys. The real trick though is to get Ubuntu Server certified by all the big hardware vendors
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er? (Score:5, Insightful)
And Raise Your Hand If You're Surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Being as they won't likely be able to get (many of) the former Novell shops back to NetWare, if they are planning to revive their company by selling Linux, their goose is cooked.
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Novell may be finding out that resellers cant sell a product if they haven't got experiance with it, and you can t get experiance in it without a reseller channel coming along and giveing lots of tech and sales presentaitons, and getting customers to come along to these too. IN NZ, I think the Novell presence is just about dead. I've got one major customer who is using SLES for their linux requirements, but there wasn't one single cent of Novell assistance in the sale. It was only that the customer required
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Netware was good in it's day but Novell rested on it's laurels for too long and became a legacy solutions provider. They've had over a decade to come up with the next new 'thing' and the best they managed was to buy Suse and make an unpopular deal with MS only to find out that businesses that are going with Linux don't really want MS to put it's fingers in it (shocking I tell you!).
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For what it's worth, when Ron Hovsepian was at IBM, he and his crew over there marveled at at the NetWare reseller channel. It was awesome - customers got resellers that knew their stuff, and resellers got lots of money. But when he got to Novell, he was disappointed to find out that the reseller channel had been decimated. I don't know why, although I know that the bean counters were (are?) in charge at Novell, and they were ruining the company.
Upshot is that Ron Hovsepian told his people to rebuild the r
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between awesome / expensive (a.k.a. complicated) or good enough / cheap (a.k.a. simple), cheap will win.
Considering the minimal amount of setup required, I think one could make an argument for NetWare having been the awesome and simple. If you already have a Novell tree, you can go from a system with no OS to a running NetWare print & file server in very little time; and if you don't yet have a tree it doesn't take much longer.
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Re:And Raise Your Hand If You're Surprised (Score:4, Informative)
Until 2005, my Netware servers were an order of magnitude mroe reliable than my Windows servers. Period.
NDS 'worked' when AD was borked. Does no one remember mixed mode, and the joy of early Server 2K? We will leave NTAS out of this, though it was the first competitor to NetWare.
The myth that NetWare is no better or worse than Windows was untrue up till Server '03, and then only barely.
The real reason NetWare failed to survive? Not reliability. Applications. Microsoft built apps on Windows servers that you could program in essentially the same IDE as the client Windows desktop app. NetWare required you learn .NLMs and be in a foreign and not very good IDE. Microsoft salted the community with freebie dev tools, and from there on in, it was over. Of course, hosing the Novell client didn't hurt either. As an example, the Novell client would return a 'not found' in 2 seconds when it had searched the tree and did not find what you were looking for. The Microsoft client would then spend 15 seconds begging for a response from any resource, after it had searched all it knew. Ok, just for grins, why would you ask essentially 'anybody out there got this?' when you have already searched all you know? The fraking MUP drove us crazy. And people blamed Novell. Nice.
Microsoft out smarted Novell. We lost. Darn. But not because they were better.
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AFAIR, at 1999 Novell gained support for Windows DLLs - you could write and _compile_ a DLL in Visual Studio and then load it in Netware. Of course, you can't use Win32 API.
NDS was rock solid, granted. But by 1999 Netware was still an OS without memory protection. So applications on it sucked hard, for example Btrieve liked to crash the whole system.
And the worst: Novell had no clear plans on development of new OSes.
Oh, and Novell licensing was pure hell.
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NDS 'worked' when AD was borked. Does no one remember mixed mode, and the joy of early Server 2K?
Worked fine for me. Win2k was a lot needier in terms of hardware than Netware/NDS, so that might have been your problem. Ease of use more than made up for the higher hardware requirements for me. The Netware clients (for ALL OS') sucked, but the Windows client was apocalyptic. About 1 in 3 logins failed on a freaking test network. This was entirely Novell's fault. Every single one of their customers used Windows on the desktop it was incumbent upon them to make a client that worked well in Windows, period.
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Netware was a complete POS.
You and I must have used different products called "Netware". While Windows was totally fucking incompetent on the filesharing tip, you would have Novell servers with uptimes of months. The biggest problem with Netware was maintenance. When it came time to do maintenance it was time to place your bets as to whether the system would actually work properly after you installed a patch, or installed some software. Did netware have no memory protection or something? Installing two complex packages on the same se
OK, Let's have a big, hearty chorus, folks! (Score:5, Funny)
OK, cue the violins! Now, all of you at once!
AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Bruce
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Wow. I think I just heard a beowulf cluster of the world's smallest violins playing.
Re:OK, Let's have a big, hearty chorus, folks! (Score:4, Insightful)
I have made sure that no one I know buys Suse as long as Novell has that stupid partnership with Microsoft. If they renounce it, tear up their contract and dance a jig, I might take them back. Til then, I run RedHat, Debian and Ubuntu. No need for any of the crap Novell is peddling.
I'll play some nice slow Irish songs about people drowning on a ferry for Novell, but I won't give them one thin dime. They're whores, and not the good kind.
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From what I've heard, Suse is the DoDIIS recommended Linux distro. IDK if this happened before or after the MSFT/Novell deal.
http://www.fas.org/irp/program/core/dodiis.htm [fas.org]
Muddled Issues (Score:4, Interesting)
TFA seems to muddle together a bunch of different issues.
One is the purely Novell issue of not being good at selling stuff. Which might be true (though I spend a lot of time dealing with SLES issues at the hardware vendor I work for) but really doesn't have anything to do with the Novell-Microsoft deal.
Another issue is the core of the Novell-MS partnership: interoperability. AFAIK, that part is working well.
Finally, there's the fact that MS is committed to supported mixed Windows-SLES installation, but hasn't bothered to actually sell any SLES licenses. Really, what else do you expect? People actually making deals based on technology they've worked with for years are not going to change their strategies just because management says so. IBM never could get its people to sell OS/2 instead of Windows, and Sun salespeople often continue to push SPARC products to all their customers, even though Sun is now in the x86 business. And in the case of MS, they have particularly limited motivation to sell Linux, since doing so would not actually generate any extra profits for MS.
Re:Muddled Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Another issue is the core of the Novell-MS partnership: interoperability. AFAIK, that part is working well.
Not so much.
The last time I played with SLES/SLED was about a year ago, and interoperability was not hugely better than any other generic Linux. They just don't have the manpower now to rewrite core stuff themselves. They do have a nice distro with well chosen components, and a default desktop that is very "Windows-Like", which is nice. They even had the start-bar at the bottom!
However, in the environment where I worked, it all broke down in testing. For example, joining a domain was painful, broken, and flat out didn't work in my client's environment (multi-domain, multi-forest, with users and machines all over the place). It could talk to one domain, most of the time, until you removed a domain controller, which would break it.
A note to Linux devs working on Active Directory compatibility: When 'joining' an AD domain, a Linux desktop is allowed to ask exactly 3 questions:
- The name of the domain (either the 'short NT4 name' or 'long DNS name')
- A user name to connect with
- A password
Lets compare this to instructions I randomly found on Ubuntu's support site:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=91510 [ubuntuforums.org]
That's about 2 pages of config files! NO. Just NO. It's not even slightly correct. I have nothing against config files as such, but "hard coding" parameters that MUST be looked up dynamically is WRONG. You can't state "compatible with Active Directory" when it is clearly NOT COMPATIBLE.
What happens when the machine and the user are in different domains? What happens if domain controllers move? Why doesn't it automatically locate the nearest servers using Sites & Services?
Correct behavior isn't even one of those Microsoft secret proprietary things. The API for dynamically obtaining configuration data for a desktop's AD connection is well documented:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684291(VS.85).aspx [microsoft.com]
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Your complaint should be with whoever wrote that doc (just a random user reciting what worked for them) not with the software capabilities.
I have joined Ubuntu machines to AD domains without hardcoding much of that stuff at a
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What happens when the machine and the user are in different domains? What happens if domain controllers move? Why doesn't it automatically locate the nearest servers using Sites & Services?
Not to excuse the incompatibility, but... a user on a non-domain system shouldn't be allowed to access a domain system: it's a security problem. And the other things can be configured, just as they can in a Windows environment (except with the keyboard, instead of the mouse).
Correct behavior isn't even one of those Mi
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I'm a tech writer. So when I say "issues" I mean "documenting use of SLES".
Relationship going bad? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, did you send flowers? No. Did you write anything but crappy emo poetry? No. Actually, no poetry at all. How about flaunting yourself in tight outfits, or at least making some minimal effort to be sexual? No there too. And apparently Microsoft is a louzy kisser (way too much tongue). Big surprise the relationship failed.
More seriously: What do these people expect? The economy is crap. Nobody's going to be trying anything new right now. And neither side spent much on marketing from everything I'm reading. And at any rate, their marketing strategy is crabbed -- you open with support, not a feature set. Whatever feature set is being offered better be one for one what they have now or don't even bother. Support is the key here -- they should have been screaming "We have technicians trained for this! Really! More than you can fit on a bus!" Except that would be a lie. So they focus on what they can effect: Which is some limited marketing propaganda that won't fool anyone. Microsoft lost its crown jewels when Vista tanked. Now everything they say comes under scrutiny -- Apple's been taking free potshots at them in the general media for about a year now and I see average people parroting those "Hi, I'm a Mac; Hi, I'm a PC" commercials. This relationship needs some pizzaz back in it, and instead Novell comes home to Microsoft wearing a familiar wonderbra and fishnet stockings?! Seriously, we're all supportive of Microsoft getting in touch with it's softer, less monopolistic side, but crossdressing in linux is not the answer. -_-
Novel (Score:2, Insightful)
Novell loss of quality (Score:2)
It use to be that Novell stuff was extremely difficult to setup, but once you got it running it ran for ever. Like the difference between a Cisco router and a $20 DLINK.
Anyone still using Novell software today? It's crap. Zenworks 10.1.3 blows up if you try to use it to delete a registry key. It's a known defect a year after the product has been released.
Check their forums, their software is crap. http://forums.novell.com/ [novell.com] In there you can see they are bleeding customers.
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I found this too. I used to love Zenworks, it was fraggin fantastic, but never get the .0 version. That would suck.
I tied setting up a lab with Open Enterprise Server, I went with the Small Business Server one, as I thought that might appeal to small operators who don't want to fork out NZ$60G plus in licensing for a good portal website (licensing for sharepoint for individually tracked users is hugely expensive), VPN, remote desktop, groupwise for mail, etc. but I couldn't even activate the damn eval produ
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I did, they had noone in NZ who understood the product. They referred me straight to Novell support in the US.
Another attack of the spin monkey... (Score:4, Insightful)
> 'So Novell, one of the biggest Linux
> distributors in the world, and Microsoft, one of
> the biggest companies in world history, couldn't
> find a single large customer on Planet Earth to
> buy into Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server
> software.
Why can't you simply cut and paste instead of putting your own lying slant on things?
You Imply Novell never signed any SLES customers, which is not true.
The actual article stated:
"During the first quarter of fiscal 2009, we did not sign any large deals, many of which have been historically fulfilled by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ("SLES") certificates delivered through Microsoft."
So Microsoft didn't even try to sell these certificates for SLES. Novell still sold SLES, probably to the very same customers that send Microsoft packing.
How hard do you suppose Microsoft tried to sell these certificates?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think those are different than the ones being talked about in this article. Those licenses, if they were ever sold, are "you said you wouldn't sue us for using Linux" licenses.
The licenses/sales the article is talking about are licenses to actually use Novell products - which are two different things. The "don't sue" licenses are subsidiary and included with the Novell SLES license (which also includes the rights to use Novell's eDirectory, etc.).
I might be wrong; I've been known to not pay close enough a
Re: (Score:2)
> During the first quarter of fiscal 2009, we did not sign any large deals, many of which have been historically fulfilled by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ("SLES") certificates delivered through Microsoft.
And things like this are why I can't believe Novell still exists as a company. This is just the most recent of many Novell decisions that are so stupid, an appropriately strong derogatory term does not exist in any known language. Here's how Novell management operated:
1) We pinned our hopes on our big
Marketing (Score:2)
The Buck Stops (Score:3, Insightful)
CEO Ron Hovsepian is right; the buck stops with Novell. They're to blame. Not because their retail channel needs to be tweaked. But rather, they got in to bed with Microsoft! I mean, c'mon. Your hedging your bets on a technology that your partner is busy trying to bury. Yeah, sure... Microsoft is trying to help make Windows and Linux work together. Meanwhile, Microsoft's CEO is discussing Linux and so-called IP law like Eddy Izzard discussing the mortality of Englebert Humperdink [youtube.com]. And Novell wants people to pay for the privilege of getting in to the middle of that?
Over the past few years, I've purchased licenses for Windows, Solaris, and Linux. Not once during these procurements did the name "Novell" come to mind.
Red Hat (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
We do not know about Canonical because it is privat corporation and it does not need to release it's incomes.
All what we know is that Mark Shuttleworth has told that Canonical would be independent from it's own income without Shuttleworths money.
But it really can be so that when Mr. Shuttleworth stops giving money for Canonical, it dies slowly. But the free community is doing the marketing job for them, no matter what is the economical or technical status of quality.
Oh My, What a Lie (Score:2)
So Novell, one of the biggest Linux distributors in the world, and Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in world history, couldn't find a single large customer on Planet Earth to buy into Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server software.
I know this is a lie. I know two large companies that make wide use of SLES and SLED.
Uh huh (Score:2)
And did they buy into it this quarter?
Whoa! Based on what data? (Score:2)
Now, I hear tell about a Very Large, Three-year contract with the USPS to deploy Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise product. I haven't heard of any strict Microsoft involvement, but between HP's consultancy wing, and every major recruitment firm in the U.S., they are apparently having a heckuva time locating an individual with the desired level of competency in some of Novell's Linux deployment technologies, namely AutoYaST, particularly scaled to the level they are deploying at.
That aside, this is a deployme
To wit: (Score:2)
HP is proposing an infrastructure solution to support the mission critical US Postal Service project that will modernize the existing USPS.com environment. USPS' objectives are to create a new USPS.com portal that will enhance user experience, provide flexibility to meet market needs, simplify operations and create a venue for additional revenue generation.
Oh yeah, Wal-Mart [monster.com] has apparently been struggling to keep someone on for their IBM/SLES deployment. This has been going on for a year now - a month or two at a time. They're not exactly small-time, either.
I don't know, it just sucks that the difference between Redhat and SuSE is so great when it comes to the number of active installations, and how stably they appear to be supported. Maybe it's because I've tried to specialize on SLES during t
Novell? (Score:2)
Ok, here goes.
Novell couldn't sell ice water in the desert to a man dying of thirst. They couldn't hardly give it to them.
Have you seen Groupwise 8? More functionality than M$ Outlook / Exchange ... And the back end a zillion times more stable than pub.edb and/or priv.edb
Netware 6.5 -- yeah a little long in the tooth, but I have servers that are 1-2 years ... YEARS in uptime. Only things that beat that are Cisco switches.
SLES .. hmmm. Yeah. Not sure i'm into that, just yet. Have I run one? Sure. Did
Network traffic half full or half empty (Score:2)
I'd say grinding SCO very, very fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. IBM ("We pretend to support open source but ...
I'd say playing "mill of the gods" and grinding SCO exceedingly fine constitutes more than just "pretend" support for open source.
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I can't imagine a scenario where crushing SCO would not have been in their own best interests. Let's not pretend that they got their friends together and shouted "Let's go kill SCO because the world needs more freedom!"
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One big one is the Linux consultants will spend more time actually getting work done instead of having to spend it evaluating break-ins, removing malware, etc.
Or are you just referring to all the extra business that Windows consultants get for those very reasons?