03.14.07
Microsoft Hijacks the Voice of Novell Customers
Have a look at this disturbing scenario. This comes from a journalist who covered the HSBC story, whose announcement came from Microsoft, along with some nasty poison.
Microsoft/Novell patent deal — a customer doesn’t speak
I asked Matthew O’Neill, group head of distributed systems for HSBC global IT operations, whether he was ever worried about either Microsoft or Novell suing it for using the other company’s products.
Before O’Neill could answer, however, Susan Hauser, general manager of strategic partnerships and licensing at Microsoft, chipped in to answer for him, giving the stock answer that the companies’ customers had concerns about intellectual property and wanted peace of mind.
Well here I was asking the companies’ customer to explain his concerns about intellectual property and he wasn’t being given a chance to speak. Eventually he did make his feelings known, but it would seem HSBC isn’t as concerned about IP infringement as Microsoft.
This is very reminiscent of Steve Ballmer’s statements ‘on behalf on Novell’. Back in November, he argued that businesses begged for Novell/Microsoft help with legal issues. The deal with Wal-mart, which we covered before, is no exception. Microsoft uses these deals to spread disinformation and create fear.
I am pleased to see that some journalists have the guts to reveal these behind-the-scenes stories. Also from the same guy:
I just noticed that Microsoft’s director of corporate standards, Jason Matusow, has published a clarification of a recent story I wrote about Open XML’s route through the ISO standardization process.
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.
Kripken said,
March 15, 2007 at 4:08 am
The claim that “Windows is cheaper than Linux” is hilarious - if that were true, why are they using Linux at all?
On the other hand, if somehow Linux comes out to be more expensive than Windows for HSBC, and they STILL use Linux, then it must have a lot of added value over Windows. Which might be true in some cases; Red Hat can cost more than Windows in some server configurations - but it is (arguably, of course) a better product. More importantly, you can use CentOS, and save much of the cost.
Amusing.
JohnK said,
April 24, 2007 at 4:20 am
If you read exactly what was said, HSBC said that running more than one Linux Distro is more expensive than running Windows. Considering they have a support contract with both Novell and Red Hat and Sun (for Solaris) then it is obvious that their M$ platform will be cheaper than all the others combined. Now that they are standardizing on one *NIX platform then they will have a lower TCO. The release was carefully edited to hide this but it is there.