07.09.08
Novell’s President of Asia-Pacific Quits the Company
Good bye, and don’t let the door smack you in the face
Novell’s top management seems not to be in a very stable state. This is just the latest example and it all happened very quietly. A belated inquiry seems to have revealed this weeks after it had actually happened.
NOVELL Asia-Pacific president Maarten Koster has relocated from Singapore to Sydney to oversee local operations after Australian manager Rob Mills resigned a few weeks ago.
Novell has had difficulty retaining senior executives.
How many more such departures complete escape the media’s radar?
No reason was publicly specified. Each time such a leader walks away, the replacement is sure to be Microsoft-sympathetic. It’s part of the job, it’s a requirement. Novell’s strategy now revolves around turning Free Software into Fee Software.
Reappointments are likely to reshape the corporate fabric of Novell, which is the next Corel in the sense that it becomes a Microsoft company shortly after it strays to GNU/Linux (soon to be offered a fat check from Microsoft to defect). Just look at the activities at Novell nowadays.
Last year Novell said that it was hiring .NET developers, amid times when there are just layoffs and offshoring.
Microsoft’s Linux subsidiary, Novell, is also trying to ensure .NET and Silverlight catch on. From the news:
Silverlight, Novell And Open Source
Even though the Silverlight community is still quite small and the examples produced by Microsoft developers are sparse, there’s a sense that Silverlight can win over designers and corporate .Net developers, more so than Adobe’s Flex has been able to do.Novell is even extending the technology with Moonlight to run on Linux. Moonlight is Novell’s take on Silverlight for Linux technologies. With the help of Mono, a Novell tool, developers can run Silverlight applications on Linux.
Whenever Microsoft does not want to offer support for GNU/Linux (required to make some technology a de facto standard), it can approach Novell and use Novell’s resources to make something half-baked. Remember: it has to be half-baked in order for GNU/Linux to be perceived as unready for the enterprise. Novell then does Microsoft’s job, by proxy. It empowers Microsoft. █
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.