02.26.08
Latest Novell Acquisition a Sign of Total Identity Loss
The CEO of MuleSource has posted an interesting quick reaction to yesterday’s Novell acquisition. It’s an assessment with which we agree entirely. Just like the other recent acquisition, this latest one illustrates that Novell is simply not the open source company it purports to be.
At this point, what is Novell? It’s clearly not an open source company.
Neither of the recent Novell acquisitions:
-Have a large volume of customers
-Are open source
-Have complimentary architectures (I think they are both Java but not sure)
In some previous analysis from Matt (Asay) and Dave it was argued that Novell might as well just swallow the Mono/.NET universe and serve as a Microsoft subsidiary in that area. It already seems like it anyway. People tend to forget that Mono is Novell. █
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.