RSSNovell CEO: We're Going to 'Attack' Vista
By Ed Oswald | Published February 15, 2007, 11:13 AM
The 'alliance' between Novell and Microsoft got a bit weirder after Novell's CEO indicated that he was pleased by Vista's slow rate of adoption, and will continue to battle the company directly in the marketplace.
Ron Hovespian made the comments to reporters in Australia on Thursday. He mentioned that Vista took over five years to produce, while open source is much easier to develop for. Also, the agreement brings Novell closer to Microsoft's customers.
Although many IT administrators will openly voice their dislike, the reality of the matter is most use the Windows operating system to run their servers. With Novell closer to the customer, the chance of migrating to Linux is much greater, he claims.
Hovespian defended the deal, saying that while the company itself did not have to do it, it was in the best interest of its customers. Additionally, he refuted the misconception that the two companies signed a patent cross-licensing agreement.
"We did not sign a patent cross licensing agreement, what we agreed to was not to sue any customers over patents," he was quoted by news sources as telling reporters. Microsoft and Novell could still sue each other, he added.
Novell says that the agreement has proven to be a positive move for the company, citing some "big wins" it has seen. Following the agreement, the company sold about 35,000 SUSE Linux support certificates, one of the more lucrative parts of its Linux business.
Microsoft has also held up its end of the pact by hiring sales and marketing staff to support SUSE Linux. An interoperability lab is still in the works as well, Hovespian says.
But after all the good feelings, don't expect Novell to take it easy on Vista. Hovespian said that Novell is "going to attack Vista" head on in the years to come.
I am not sure what the real story is here, except that perhaps a bit of over the top imagery was used.
Novell is still a business, and it should be expected that they are going to 'fight' to capture as much market share as they can.
Cooperative agreements aside, there should be no assumption that any company is going to voluntarily ignore any particular sector of the market!
Suse still 'owns' the European Linux market sector and it is dominant in the Linux 64 bit realm.
And to dismiss the growth in enterprise support contracts is one of the stupidest comments I have heard in a long time! Of course that means it is just another post here!
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Google and Cisco can compete against Microsoft, they have tons of money. Novell has zip. My recent experiences with SUSE have not been good and you can't do squat without a product.
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i think that the linux users are hurt by the "monster" called microsoft and mac users are, too. the meaning of microsoft been sussesful at marketing is not just because the compativility it has, it has a easy-to-use GUI, and people that dont know about computer dont want to deal with writing code or memorizing procedures to work in linux or mac or even Unix (BSD for example)
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"writing code or memorizing procedures" on the Mac???
You can live your entire life in their elegant GUI and never have the need to open a terminal session.
Heck, I know Mac users who have had their machine for years that still have NO idea that there IS a command line terminal session!
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I have to recant everything I said about Vista in the past, I've got it (pre-installed on a new notebook) but not the upgrade for PC's that cant handle it and would perform better with XP.
Linux is for people who still think Microsoft is evil and down want to be like everybody else. I agree with the non conformist on some thingsa but not the most popular O/S on the planet. If you want programs to run and hardware to run properly, you have to use Windows, period.
Vista has it s*** together so far, it's been about a week and I am extremely happy.
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Until Linux is easy for anyone(from grandma to gamer), this is nothing more than just a pipe dream. I agree Linux is very flexible and open source but it is just too difficult for the average computer user.
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"Until Linux is easy for anyone(from grandma to gamer), this is nothing more than just a pipe dream. I agree Linux is very flexible and open source but it is just too dificult for the average computer user."
Word.
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yeah someone needs to make linux more ez its becoming better and better with ubuntu and stuff soon it might surpass windows maybe in 2055
http://jayed.us/
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Well, Novell's got to rally their troops somehow. Too bad their troops don't have any ammo.
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This is simply more empty posturing form a washed up company.
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Be the best Linux distro before think about Vista. 35,000, so big...
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lol that is pretty funny that they brag about 35,000 SUSE linux certificates. watch out microsoft!!! here they come. ahahaha. thats like taking on the apple ipod and selling 35,000 of ur players and think u even show up in the market share. LOL! what a tard. hes blowing steam out his a$$
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Hey genius, they are not talking about selling 35,000 copies of Linux!
They are talking about selling 35,000 enterprise support contracts!
You either need to get a new cereal box from which to get your data, or ask your mom for help with the big words!
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how about u go find the same numbers for microsoft and compare the two huh? instead of attacking me with missguided anger. idk wtf is up ur a$$ but u should prolly pull it out sometime soon.
and exactly what words to i need help with? typos do not reflect the ability to spell or speak properly.
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All bark and NO bite. I used Netware ever since 3.11. They had a great NOS, but screwed their consumers, had a superiority complex, and rested on their laurels. For the desktop, SUSE is fine, but Novell blew their future years ago and relagated themselves to second rate. They purchased/adopted Novell DOS after DOS was dying. They switched from ipx to ip after others made ip the standard. They made a poor attempt to develop a GUI for their server. They almost grudingly developed an alpha client for Vista, with the actual beta due out in March. This made it impossible for network admins to test Vista and remain connected to a Novell server. History does repeat itself. What happened to IBM with the pc market is the samething that happened to Novell with the NOS. I used to root for Novell, had a CNE, etc. But now the writing is on the wall. Most centers at my university have switched from Novell. I have one remaining Novell server at it's only a matter of time before I terminate it. As a side note, I'm still a fan of linux and love opensource, such as apache, mysql, perl, php, openoffice, firefox, etc. But I also have common sense to run Microsoft servers where needed.
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I am not a Vista Fanboy, but I must say the statement below is far from happening.
"But after all the good feelings, don't expect Novell to take it easy on Vista. Hovespian said that Novell is "going to attack Vista" head on in the years to come."
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Novell needs to shut the heck up. Be quiet when you win, that makes you look better. Threats, etc., do not help, especially from one such as Novell. If Microsoft was in so much trouble from Novell, why did Novell IGNORE Microsoft Windows NT even while it utterly decimated the remains of the once dominant Netware OS?
Politics aside, I will be blunt: I hate Novell. Always have. I try to be objective regardless, but I have hated them since I first witnessed Netware and suffered the horrors of learning the IPX/SPX "protoclog" suite. They were arrogant "to the end", and even now they have learned nothing from their past mistakes. EVEN MICROSOFT has learned from it--they will never underestimate an underdog, even Novell.
Open source did not restore their user base to one tenth the market share Novell had before Windows NT 4.0 came along, so they're just blowing steam here.
(reads my comment days after he wrote it) Wow, I must have been having a bad day yesterday. Not sure why I got so upset. Anyways, Novell was a pain, cause I had to learn all sorts of stuff about CSNW and such to get my NT 4.0 certifications. Other than that, I really held no major grudge against them...until now that is.
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is it 35000 suse linux support certificates a big win??? HELL NO!!!!! LMAO( LAUGHING MY a** OUT) somebody, tell me the numbers of windows pc that are out there, and linux pcs and mac pcs, so **** them, for me.... i think that linux is just for hacking (and itz true)
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Who knew novell was still in business.
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Hmmm....apparently you're new to this planet, or perhaps are reading impaired. Every week, you will find banks, government agencies and corporations switching one part or another of their computers to SUSE Linux. In fact, Wal-Mart Corporate ISD is switching much of their system to SUSE Linux, as well....all part of Novell.
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Who says the tech world is boring? This has drama written all over it. Where's MTV when you need them?
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Heh... Nice. =)
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Drama, yes, that's the word!
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I use Linux Servers, and Windows as my Desktop. I think there is room for both OS's to co-exist peacefully together.
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I agree completely. Linux is wonderful, but quite frankly the little experience I have with it I still am able to distinguish a stable OS from a buggey one--and the SUSE Linux is the only one I've seen crash more than once in the same day due to a software issue (specifically router RIP was changed on a cisco router 2 frikin nodes from the server, and somehow that made the server lock up? Never figured that one out...)
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Well, on the other side of personal experience, I run four systems here on SUSE Linux (currently Version 10.2) and I can't say I've had a system crash on any of them over the past year, anyway. I did have some problems a couple of versions ago, with SUSE 10.0, when first released. The only reboot I've had during that time was due to a power failure, version grade reinstall, or for a kernel update.
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Well, to be fair, I don't have nearly enough experience with it to know if the whole server was just screwed up or not. Maybe Linux wasn't the problem at all--I simply don't know enough about it to say for sure.
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You just HAVE to laugh at the antics of these grown ups!
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Hi, I felt sick after that remark, it really hurt my feelings...I happen to love Vista now, it will help me, however I cannot afford it. so if anyone has an extra copy, I will be glad to pay for half of it, I am a disabled veteran, and I want the Ultimate version...my name is George and my email address is gpgo@hotmail.com...I wish everyone a nice week, and I like betanews toooooo, go Beta...
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