06.07.08
Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part IV: Award, Anniversary and Other Positives
There has been very little non-Linux news from Novell. Here is the little that was found and gathered over the past week.
Award and Anniversary
Novell was among those who received a CODiE Award.
The Novell portfolio ofidentity and security management solutions has won the Best Security Solution category for the 2008 CODiE Awards, an annual program of the Software Industry and Information Association (SIIA) that recognizes achievement and vision in the software industry. This award reinforces the breadth and depth of Novell’s identity and security management solutions, which are being deployed by nearly 6000 customers worldwide.
Red Hat’s Linux won a CODiE award too.
The following bit of news was briefly mentioned last week, but here is an anniversary marked in a more festive way.
Novell’s systems management solution line, ZENworks, is 10 years old this year. Novell ZENworks 1.0 was launched in 1998; since then its functionality has been consistently expanded to create a complete software suite.
Staffing
People are swapping jobs and Novell’s former individuals are named. Specifically:
1. Epsilon taps Richmond for regional role
Richmond previously ran her own business management and change management consultancy, and has worked with companies such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, Avaya and Novell.
2. RedSeal Systems Appoints Tom Arthur as CEO”
From 1988 to 1998, Arthur served in various sales, marketing and general management roles for Novell Inc. His last position was VP and GM of Novell’s Internet Infrastructure Division, which was focused on Novell’s directory services, security offerings and software platforms for Internet Service Providers. Arthur holds a BS from the University of California at Davis.
3. RSA finds an Aussie foursome
Security sales specialist Mason Hooper brings more than 16 years of IT industry experience gained at companies such as Novell, Dimension Data and Fujitsu.
Leftovers
SJVN was among those who were more excited about Novell’s financial performance.
Ever since Novell bought Ximian and SUSE and got into the Linux business, most people thought Novell would be a perpetual also-ran to Red Hat. This quarter points to Novell becoming a more serious contender for the enterprise’s Linux dollar.
And, what has made the difference? Linux lovers will hate this but I credit Novell’s continuing strong Linux growth not to its outstanding SUSE Linux or its excellent openSUSE. No, what really is giving Novell’s Linux its boost is… its partnership with Microsoft.
Here is another take on this issue.
People have criticised Novell for relying on Microsoft to bring in Linux business, which is a bit like a blood bank relying on supplies from Dracula.
Totally unrelated to this, here is an article about security, which goes further to discussing Higgins.
IBM and Novell have announced their support for the Higgins Trust Framework, an open source project under Eclipse that states as its design goals a set of APIs that will allow the exchange of identity, profile and relationship information across disparate environments.
The IBM/Novell interaction is noteworthy. █
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.
Victor Soliz said,
June 7, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Perhaps FOSS wouldn’t be so needy of MS money (like Novell, Sourceforge, etc) if it wasn’t for the fact people use the money and resources they get on fruitless attempts to boost MS.
Victor Soliz said,
June 7, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Oh sorry, that text is sort of hidden in a screenshot on Icaza’s blog.
Roy Schestowitz said,
June 7, 2008 at 1:06 pm
There are some more urgent problems with Silverfish…
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3509