[11-11-2006] Last week Microsoft and Novell announced that they would work with one another to make Windows and Linux play nicely together, and that they would push one another's products to customers that wanted to use both Windows and Linux.
This is something of a turnaround for both companies. In the past Microsoft has described Linux as 'unAmerican' and a cancer. Legend even has it that Microsoft at one stage included code in its products to check for Novell products and cause crashes if a Novell programs were found.
Novell's ex-CEO, Ray Noorda, blew Novell's dowry - built up in the years where it was the only networking game in town - on buying products that he believed would help Novell defeat Microsoft on the desktop. A few years ago the company bought SuSE Linux and has since struggled to build its profile in the open source market place.
So why are these long standing foes now cuddling up to one another?
There is a saying, 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' And in this case the enemy is top Linux provider Red Hat! Novell is fighting to take the top spot from Red Hat. Microsoft is fighting to beat the challenge to its business model represented by open source, and Red Hat is its most dangerous opponent.
Shoring up Novell makes perfect sense to Microsoft. Novell have already shown they are a company that can blow everything at the crucial moment, and can probably be trusted to do the same again after Red Hat has been trounced. In the meantime they are likely to become increasingly dependent on Microsoft's support.
The deal makes sense for Novell, because they are getting nowhere with Linux - they may be the second largest Linux distribution vendor, but that is because SuSE was already number two when they took it over. Novell have some good ideas, but in general their people don't understand open source, and since they took SuSE over, most of the key players in the old SuSE company have departed.
Significantly, the agreement includes an undertaking to share intellectual property and Microsoft has undertaken not to enforce its patents against individual, non-commercial SuSE Linux developers. This is something which will reassure companies who have hung back from using open source because of patent and copyright concerns.
Of course, alliances of hereditary enemies are notoriously unstable - especially when the common enemy is vanquished. Will this be any different? Probably not - I would guess that both sides are already developing their strategies for the break up, and I, for one, don't fancy Novell's chances, though by then Novell may well be just Microsoft's Open Source Division.
And what of Red Hat?
Red Hat are behaving just like a traditional Microsoft foe. Feeling secure in their market leadership they are being arrogant and snotty, and not working to keep themselves in their current position. The history of Microsoft is littered with the corpses of foes that blew it while Microsoft avoided making stupid decisions.
To be candid, I don't forsee a big change this time round :(
http://newsletters.zdnetuk.cneteu.net/t/159619/921984/213366/0/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/03/microsoft_novell_suse_linux/
http://www.physorg.com/news81778212.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/02/microsoft_novell_linux/
http://ct.news.com.com/clicks?t=17075901-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
Novell's ex-CEO, Ray Noorda, blew Novell's dowry - built up in the years where it was the only networking game in town - on buying products that he believed would help Novell defeat Microsoft on the desktop. A few years ago the company bought SuSE Linux and has since struggled to build its profile in the open source market place.
So why are these long standing foes now cuddling up to one another?
There is a saying, 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' And in this case the enemy is top Linux provider Red Hat! Novell is fighting to take the top spot from Red Hat. Microsoft is fighting to beat the challenge to its business model represented by open source, and Red Hat is its most dangerous opponent.
Shoring up Novell makes perfect sense to Microsoft. Novell have already shown they are a company that can blow everything at the crucial moment, and can probably be trusted to do the same again after Red Hat has been trounced. In the meantime they are likely to become increasingly dependent on Microsoft's support.
The deal makes sense for Novell, because they are getting nowhere with Linux - they may be the second largest Linux distribution vendor, but that is because SuSE was already number two when they took it over. Novell have some good ideas, but in general their people don't understand open source, and since they took SuSE over, most of the key players in the old SuSE company have departed.
Significantly, the agreement includes an undertaking to share intellectual property and Microsoft has undertaken not to enforce its patents against individual, non-commercial SuSE Linux developers. This is something which will reassure companies who have hung back from using open source because of patent and copyright concerns.
Of course, alliances of hereditary enemies are notoriously unstable - especially when the common enemy is vanquished. Will this be any different? Probably not - I would guess that both sides are already developing their strategies for the break up, and I, for one, don't fancy Novell's chances, though by then Novell may well be just Microsoft's Open Source Division.
And what of Red Hat?
Red Hat are behaving just like a traditional Microsoft foe. Feeling secure in their market leadership they are being arrogant and snotty, and not working to keep themselves in their current position. The history of Microsoft is littered with the corpses of foes that blew it while Microsoft avoided making stupid decisions.
To be candid, I don't forsee a big change this time round :(
http://newsletters.zdnetuk.cneteu.net/t/159619/921984/213366/0/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/03/microsoft_novell_suse_linux/
http://www.physorg.com/news81778212.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/02/microsoft_novell_linux/
http://ct.news.com.com/clicks?t=17075901-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0