12.21.07
Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part III: Novell’s Past and NetWare Age
It’s worth keeping track of David Patrick, who left Novell not so long ago (2006).
I had a lovely conversation with both David Patrick, CEO, and Albert Lee, Chief Strategy Officer, of xkoto about their new product, GridScale. I’ve known David for quite some time. We met at Ximian’s Cambridge offices long before Novell acquired the company. If my memory serves me, David later become VP and General Manager of Novell’s Linux, Open Source and Services group. Although I’m sure that I’ve met Albert at some time in the past, neither of us can recall when we met.
The New York Times also mentioned Eric Schmidt’s roots in Novell.
At Sun Microsystems, where he was chief technology officer, Mr. Schmidt looked on as Scott G. McNealy, the company’s chairman, railed against Microsoft and its leaders, Steven A. Ballmer and Bill Gates, as “Ballmer and Butthead.” During a four-year stint as chief executive of Novell, Mr. Schmidt routinely opined that it was folly for any Microsoft rival to “moon the giant,” as he put it; all that would do, he argued, was incite Microsoft’s wrath.
In YouTube, a new video of the old launch of Netware 6 is now available. It’s also embedded below.
Novell’s NetWare gets a quick pass-by mention in ComputerWorld.
Novell’s NetWare and eDirectory are still major presences in many organizations today, particularly in some education markets. But fully integrating Mac OS X with both NetWare and eDirectory poses a unique set of challenges to systems administrators.
Lastly, here is a very long story of civil servant which involves implementing a Novell Local Area Network, among many other Novell-related things. █
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.