05.31.08
Dell and Novell a Match Made in Hell? (Video)
It just… almost… sort of… ‘works’
It has been quite a while since we last wrote about Novell’s mysterious relationship with Dell. Someone might not be telling us the whole story.
In any event, just for kicks (maybe a kick in Novell’s and Dell’s groin), here’s a video that showed up in YouTube just a few days ago. It’s titled very nicely: “Dell+Novell = Hell.”
Here is an Ogg Theora version that we’ve produce for readers who prefer it.
It has been a tough week for Dell, which faced serious charges.
In December of 2002, I started a page on my Computer Gripes site devoted to Dell.
Accumulating gripes about Dell was like taking candy from a baby; there was no sport in it. Eventually, I gave up maintaining the page, but despite a total lack of advertising or promotion, people kept finding the page and adding their own gripes.
Now these Dell gripes are official.
In the words of Jerry Seinfeld, “good luck with all that.” Dell’s financial misconduct goes a long way back, but we won’t list it here because it’s definitely off topic. That company is at least trying to escape Microsoft’s stranglehold. █
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.