10.01.07
Microsoft and Novell Talk About the Deal (Audio)
Dan Bricklin has published a recording of the latest panel session which discusses the Novell/Microsoft deal. It is about an hour and a half long. Here are some notes taken while listening to key parts of this audio discussion. Shown on the right, by the way, is Steve Ballmer riding on his ‘high horse’ and listening to the podcast on his Zu…. errr… I mean, iPod. Parts of the image were borrowed from a famous viral marketing video, which was aptly named “Ballmer’s iPod”.
Anyway, here are some messages taken from the podcast:
- One interesting thing to discover is that Justin Steinman has a “night job” which involved working on the Microsoft-Novell deal in isolation. This means that he has some professional ties in both companies. At daytime he manages Novell’s marketing as far as Linux and open source go. This dual role has some implications on agenda, one would assume.
- Justin Steinman, whose statements have been controversial at times, says that 13-14 months ago he arranged the partnership. That would be just two to three months after Ron Hovspeian had called Microsoft’s Kevin Turner, according to some key interviews, as well as his talk at the deal’s announcement (press conference).
- Susan Haystee of Novell is working with of Microsoft’s Susan Hauser (the one that spreads Linux FUD).
- The panel itself involves people whose main goal is to promote the partnership with Microsoft (”make it happen”, to use Ron Hovsepian’s words). One of the people on the panel was part of the intellectual property execution of the deal. He is a Microsoft lawyer.
- The panel discuses how this deal came about before the press release. According to Peter, 4 years ago they were reaching out to customers and they also took into account intellectual property. They wanted to build a bridges and they involved patents and intellectual property. They spoke to customers and government elites in the process.
- Steve Ballmer funded the group. Novell and Microsoft had an alignment in philosophy and commonalities.
- Justin Steinman calls some of the software engineers “hackers”, which brings to mind Shane’s observation.
If you choose to listen to this podcast, please share some of your findings. Here is our chance to collect more evidence and understand this deal better.
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.