11.16.07
Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part IV: Dell, China, SCO, and Ron Hovsepian Interview
Think of this as somewhat of a spillover that contains various unrelated topics, and primarily news from the past week.
Novell in China
Articles about Dell, Microsoft and Novell continue to come. It’s an interesting relationship that remains wrapped as somewhat of a mystery because of vague patent agreements. This new article is about China.
Novell and Dell announced to expand Linux offerings with the addition of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 installed on Dell OptiPlex 330 and 755 business desktop PCs in China. The systems will be available later this year.
Another somewhat bizarre article comes from China itself.
Steve Ballmer at Microsoft can be quite eccentric at times — although in fairness he is apparently an unassuming family man who is a decent cove — and the mention of the operating system Linux makes him come over strange.
Watch the photo.
SCO
In case you wish to catch up with the latest on SCO (Novell is still very much involved), read this article.
In a similar case, Andreas Kuckartz, a German Linux advocate, had been publicly stating since 2003 that “SCO IP Licenses for Linux” amounted to little more than “protection money pricelists” and that SCO is “spreading rumors about copyright violations in Linux.” Further, Kuckartz claimed that “The SCO Group Inc. is probably is involved in crimes such as stock manipulation and filing a fraudulent complaint against IBM.”
UBS Again
We have out many reasons for skepticism, but one analyst at UBS insists that Novell is doing well.
Shares of Novell Inc. rose Monday after the Waltham, Mass., software maker received an upgrade to buy from neutral from UBS Investment Research.
The stock gained 3.7% to $7.06 in midday trades. Shares are now up almost 14% year-to-date. UBS also lifted the 12-month price target for the stock to $9 from $8.50.
New Additions to YouTube
Interview with Ron Hovsepian, CEO of Novell.
There are a variety of new GroupWise videos. One is worth a quick mention, but there’s nothing exciting to see here really.
There has not been much Novell buzz in the audio/video world recently. Bear in mind that such material often comes from fans and supporters. It’s not the press.
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.