01.26.08
Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part I: Miscellaneous Picks from a Quiet Week
In the past week, there has not been a great deal of news about Novell, but here are some isolated stories which cover Novell in one way or another.
As you have probably heard by now, IBM’s s. Tsoftware will come to multiple GNU/Linux distributions. SUSE is among them.
Novell
IBM also announced strong momentum behind its Open Collaboration Client Solution powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell that was announced last August. Novell was the first distributor to integrate with IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution by offering a single click install process for SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell and IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution, as well as migration and integration services provided by Value Added Distributors (VADs) around the Open Collaboration Client Solution. More than a dozen VADs worldwide have signed up, enabled, and are promoting the solution, including Arrow in the United States, driving demand for their top resellers and Avnet in Italy focused on public sector business and government customers.
Here is the press release.
There are some signs which indicate that SGI is still using SUSE in the clusters.
Hundreds of SGI Customers Contribute to Latest Report From Nobel Prize-Winning Climate Change Panel
SGI, Altix, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered trademarks of SGI in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. Novell is a registered trademark, and SUSE is a trademark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
ZDNet Asia published an article about the decline of support needs. This article is centered around Novell’s experience and testimony.
Kurc said, in an interview with ZDNet Asia: “It’s great that people are implementing Linux for free. I’m all for gaining mindshare.” The Novell executive was in Singapore to speak at an event on Windows and Linux interoperability to employ server virtualization.
eWeek published an articles which covers the WordPerfect lawsuit. For a change, this one is not very critical of Novell.
Friends in development, enemies in the courtroom, Novell is continuing with its billion dollar-plus suit against Microsoft.
[…]
During the mid-’90s, under the leadership of Ray Noorda, Novell had acquired the WordPerfect word processor by merging with the WordPerfect Corp. and by buying Quattro Pro, a once-popular spreadsheet program, from Borland. The intent was to create a Novell office suite to compete with what would become Microsoft Office 95.
Novell, unable to successfully compete with Office 95, sold WordPerfect to Corel for a fraction of what it had paid for the program. The acquisition had cost Novell $1.2 billion in May 1994, but by 1996 it sold it for a bargain-basement price of $170 million. Today, Corel continues to sell WordPerfect, but it has only a minute fraction of the word processing market.
[…]
Now, despite Novell’s close partnership with Microsoft, Novell has never given up on its WordPerfect lawsuit. With this new decision, and Microsoft’s appeal, the two will continue to fight in the courts, no matter how close they may appear in cross-platform Linux and Windows development.
Here is another type of leech whose business is based on Novell’s problems (no, no hypocrisy here).
Top Layer Networks, a global leader for high performance intrusion prevention solutions, today announced that its IPS 5500 provides customers with Zero-Day protection against known attacks for the critical Novell Groupwise Client IMG Tag Buffer Overflow vulnerability, a critical exploitable vulnerability that could enable attackers to control vulnerable systems. The Top Layer TopResponse research team has assured IPS 5500 customers that they have been proactively protected against known attacks using this vulnerability and require no further action on their part.
Lastly, GWAVACon makes a bunch of headline with a press release.
GWAVA, one of Novell’s largest collaboration partners for Novell GroupWise and Novell Teaming + Conferencing, announced today that Mark Diamond, President and CEO, Contoural, Inc., will speak at GWAVACon in San Diego, Calif.
We previously showed some videos from previous gatherings at GWAVACon. █
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.