02.28.07
Novell Distributes Wealth of Job Cuts
Novell is expecting quite a large sum of money from last year’s jobs cuts.
Business software maker Novell Inc. said on Wednesday it expects charges of $35 million to $45 million for job cuts and facility closures that began in last year’s fourth quarter.
[…]
Novell has already taken some $150 million in restructuring charges over the past five years, but Chief Executive Ron Hovsepian has said restructuring efforts have failed to realize their full potential in boosting profitability.
So, Ron Hovsepian thought that ‘protection money’ from Microsoft would help, all the expense of the Free Software community. It may be too late to act naive. Novell swallowed a bug in order to give its stock a little boost. As a result, companies became Microsoft’s victims of extortion, although it happens behind the scenes.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Stephen said,
March 1, 2007 at 5:33 am
Novell’s malaise extends far beyond their entry into the opensource foray. Now really, everyone should recognise that. To put the MS/Novell deal as a root cause of that is naive in the extreme. If you look at the balance sheets of late you’ll see nothing but a series of reported numbers showing the growth of Linux-based products, though clearly not enough to keep the shareholders happy - that’s a different matter.
This news has NOTHING to do with the Microsoft deal - the impact of that won’t be seen for months to come, perhaps not even until the end of this year.
Roy Schestowitz said,
March 1, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Well, the transition from a sales-based model to a subscription/support model tends to change the rules. Novell can only hope to catch up with Red Hat, which has reputation on the servers.
Meanwhile I notice that Novell has struck a deal…
Microsoft Windows ousted at California school district
http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1245710,00.html