03.13.10
Posted in Courtroom, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, OSDL, SCO, UNIX at 7:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: How SCO orchestrated attacks on Groklaw and other takes on the trial against Novell
WE generally cover the SCO case only when there is a major development. One new post that we found particularly curious is titled “Blake Stowell Email to Maureen O’Gara: ‘I Need You to Send a Jab PJ’s Way’” (SCO also paid O'Gara, who carries on lying about the case).
This shows how corruptible the press really is, but then again it’s Sys-Con [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], which is far worse than Fox. Microsoft also used Maureen O'Gara to send a jab in the Linux Foundation's way (OSDL at the time). Microsoft didn’t do this directly. In order to reduce the risk, it used its main PR agency (there are several), Waggener Edstrom. Anyway, here is what Groklaw writes:
So. Now I know. Now we all know.
Blake Stowell, then the PR guy for SCO, sent an email to Maureen O’Gara, saying “I need you to send a jab PJ’s way,” and then right afterwards she wrote that invasive so-called expose, in which she revealed, or at least intended to reveal, things like who I called on my phone. A la the HP scandal. She got fired for doing it the way she did, and the then-publisher apologized to me publicly, but she says in the deposition she’s not sorry a bit.
We learn this by reading excerpts from her deposition, previously under seal, attached to a letter [PDF] SCO’s attorney sent to the court. SCO doesn’t want the part of her deposition video played where she talks about me and Groklaw. It’s beyond eye-opening, however, despite her pretense, as I see it, that there is no connection between the two events.
They also don’t want the part about an email she sent to SCO, subject line, “I want war pay,” played. It’s allegedly humor. Just chatter. But you know, she is on the list of people SCO owes money to, now that I think of it, filed in connection with the bankruptcy. I wonder for what?
It isn’t acceptable, in my eyes, that SCO’s attorneys invariably smear Groklaw in every filing that mentions it. They don’t just say “Groklaw,” they say “the anti-SCO website, Groklaw.” One can say quite a lot in legal filings, and get away with it, but there is a line where it becomes libel, when it is gratuitous, and that language is gratuitous. There isn’t a media outlet that I can think of, other than Maureen O’Gara’s newsletters, that hasn’t criticized what SCO did. The Wall Street Journal was the first, actually, to suspect there was something rotten in Lindon, if you recall. Would it be acceptable to call it, in legal papers, the anti-SCO newspaper, the Wall St. Journal? I think not, and I suggest they are crossing a line.
Microsoft evangelists (on the payroll) are doing this to Boycott Novell and anonymous Novell employees too. Thus, they would be hypocrites to paint themselves as victims of bad publicity.
Our reader The Mad Hatter writes some more about the SCO case, calling it “SCOicide”.
Due to the interest in the case, Judge Kimbell told both parties to minimize redactions in the documents that they filed, and not to minimize the number of documents filed under seal. Because of this we learned that Caldera had hired people to investigate and prove the transfer of code, and that they reported that they COULD NOT FIND PROOF OF ANY TRANSFER. They filed their reports before the original lawsuit was launched. Darl, the CEO knew that he didn’t have any proof. None. But he went ahead with the lawsuit against IBM anyway.
Other coverage from the latest episode in this case includes:
1. Novell asks for further ruling on Motion in Limine No. 4
Novell has asked the Court to rule further on their Motion in Limine No. 4 [PDF; text]. The Court had previously issued a ruling [PDF] granting that Motion, but Novell now asks for further ruling, stating that “[t]he Court addressed this issue solely in the context of SCO’s covenant of good faith claim. However, Novell’s motion covered all of SCO’s claims, including slander of title. The Court’s prior ruling did not expressly address other claims, so Novell requests the Court to rule on the issue that was left open by its prior order.”
2. Attorney: IBM-Novell worked together to hurt SCO
Novell Inc. lied about owning the copyrights for the Unix computer operating system then collaborated with IBM to damage Unix owner The SCO Group, the latter’s attorney told a federal court jury Tuesday.
In the first day of testimony in a trial to settle a long-running legal dispute between SCO and Novell, SCO went on the attack by calling as its first witness the former CEO and chairman of Novell. Robert Frankenberg testified that despite Novell’s claims of ownership, his intent was to sell the copyrights in a 1995 deal that’s at the heart of the conflict.
The SCO Group claims that Novell “slandered” its title to the Unix system and caused it to lose as much as $215 million in revenue at a time when it was in a related dispute with IBM. SCO had accused IBM of improperly using Unix code for improvements that made the Linux operating system a commercial competitor.
SCO’s 2003 lawsuit potentially put IBM on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars. But then Novell late that year claimed that it, and not SCO, owned the copyrights, meaning SCO did not have a basis for its IBM lawsuit nor for demands that businesses using Linux pay licensing fees.
3. Novell, IBM accused of collaborating to hurt Unix owner, lawyer says
A trial in federal court that could have a major impact on the Linux operating system opened in Salt Lake City on Monday with The SCO Group’s lawyer taking aim at Novell and IBM.
4. Arguments begin in SCO v. Novell over copyrights
5. Day 2 of the SCO v. Novell Trial – Opening argument – Updated Repeatedly – 1st Witness, Frankenberg (more documents)
Would it surprise you to find out that it turns out that apparently one of the jurors might be related to one of SCO’s prior corporate officers? At any rate they have the same last name, and Salt Lake City is a big place, so perhaps not. Novell noticed the similarity in names, according to our reporter today, MSS2, only after jury selection was over.
MSS2 has just sent me his first report of day 2 of the jury trial in SCO v. Novell, with more to come. Today was opening arguments by both sides. And we have lots more goodies for you from two eyewitnesses, MSS2 and Tilendor. We begin with SCO’s opening argument by Stuart Singer. All I can say after reading it is maybe you needed to be there. Or SCO must be a slow learner or Mr. Singer never reads Groklaw, or … well, see what you think.
6. Day 1 of the Jury Trial, SCO v. Novell – Updated 2Xs – We Have a Jury
7. Jury seated in SCO lawsuit against Novell
A jury has been seated to hear the lawsuit in which The SCO Group is claiming Novell interfered with its ownership of the Unix computer operating system and cost it more than $100 million in business.
8. Last-Minute Filings from Judge Stewart, SCO, Novell
9. More Back-and-Forth on Proposed Jury Instructions/Verdict Forms in SCO v. Novell
10. Day 2 of the SCO v. Novell Trial – Opening argument – Updated Repeatedly – 1st Witness, Frankenberg
11. Volunteer Needed for Thursday Trial Coverage
The Salt Lake Tribune then published this somewhat controversial article (also posted here), which led to this rebuttal from Groklaw.
And on it goes until Friday:
12. Day 4 of the Trial in SCO v. Novell – and Novell’s Petition for Certiorari
13. Novell’s Motion to Allow Evidence: SCO Opened the Door
14. Day 5 of the SCO v. Novell Trial & Some Help for Journalists Covering the Trial
Some readers of Boycott Novell have sufficient knowledge about the case and they comment about it in IRC. But for well researched commentary regarding SCO, we recommend that people read Groklaw, which could use more volunteers. █
“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”
–Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO approached by Microsoft
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03.11.10
Posted in Microsoft, Security, UNIX at 4:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Where Toyota’s problems intersect with Microsoft’s
FOR those who know nothing about the incident that affects Toyota, here is a new article of interest:
Toyoda said that when his company gets a complaint about a mechanical problem, engineers set to work trying to duplicate the problem in their labs to find out what went wrong.
Norton said: “Your answer — we’ll wait to see if this is duplicated — is very troublesome.” Norton asked Toyoda why his company waited until a problem recurred to try to diagnose it, which is exactly what he was not saying.
Members of Congress are generally lawyers and politicians, not engineers. But they are launching investigations and creating policies that have a direct impact on the designers and builders of incredibly complex vehicles — there are 20,000 parts in a modern car — so there are some basics they should understand. Chief among them: The only way to credibly figure out why something fails is to attempt to duplicate the failure under observable conditions. This is the engineering method.
Greenfield from ZDNet has published what he calls “Microsoft’s Toyota Letter” and a reader sent us some information about the Toyota fiasco.
Is Toyota’s software problem a Microsoft problem? I’m finding their fingerprints on a lot of this. A partner of theirs did a lot of software for them and Microsoft invaded the ITRON world of Japan in 2001 and 2003. Microsoft’s invasion of automotive control systems created similar problems for BMW in the late 90’s.
In 2001 Toyota used Keane to develop software for their cars.
They are a Microsoft Gold Partner.
Just look at their home page:
http://www.keane.com/
Ewwwww!
Am I on to something here? Was Toyota dumb enough to make Prius and other vehicles dependent on .NET and C#? I’d look into this some more, but it’s time for me to sleep. I’ll bet more digging will find a stinking Microsoft center to Toyota’s recent problems.
This forum discussion points to something called itron a sort of non free unix.
They link to the Free software-hostile Linux Insider:
Which has this gem. Microsoft sought to corrupt ITRON
In late September, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) surprised the industry by joining the T-Engine Forum. Microsoft intends to work with the Forum to establish specifications for an environment in which the T-Kernel and Windows CE can coexist on the T-Engine hardware reference platform.Microsoft will continue to develop its own OS, but the company hopes T-Engine developers will be attracted to Windows CE’s user interfaces. The company will demonstrate prototypes derived from the joint effort at December’s Tokyo TronShow. Microsoft’s decision to join the T-Engine Forum is not without irony. The company was the main beneficiary of U.S. government actions against the TRON project in 1989.
A Microsoft damaged ITRON malfunction would be about as damaging to Microsoft as a Windows malfunction because it shows that non free software from Microsoft does the same sorts of things regardless of OS. Junk is junk no matter what you run it on and GNU/Linux infused with Microsoft will be not do well.
Given these hints of Microsoft involvement in the cock up, it’s funny to see Microsoft pretending to come to the rescue.
Inside the car QNX from Lucent Actel provides wide area networking and other services
http://www.ngconnect.org/ecosystem/connected-car.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX
The vehicle uses Bluetooth to suck information from cell phones, so that the car’s built in phone is synced with the one in your pocket. This was the center of some Windows-centric security hype and it may have been a vector for Microsoft corruption but nothing seems to have come of that.
The car is also supposed to be able to talk to iPhone.
Well, iPhones are becoming widespread. And now that Apple’s market valuation soars, former Microsoft employee John Carroll blasts Apple in his ZDNet blog. He also smeared OLPC while hiding his Microsoft roots.
“Microsoft promises to be more like Apple,” says Fudzilla.
The New York Times, which is one of Apple’s favourite newspapers, has been seen giving Microsoft a bit of a hit with a rubber hose. Microsoft is quoted as saying that it has learnt a lot from the way Apple has gone into the mobile market and it will be learning from what it did.
So Microsoft admits copying Apple, just as Steve Jobs admits "stealing" from other companies. █
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03.04.10
Posted in Courtroom, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Novell, SCO, UNIX at 9:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”
–Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO
Summary: A detailed analysis of the pseudo-firm (Elliott) that wants to buy Novell and how the bid came about
OVER the past couple of days we have written three posts about the bid to buy Novell, namely:
- Novell May be Going Private, Hedge Fund Has Cash
- Analyst Expects Microsoft Bid to Buy Novell
- Ron Hovsepian Receives Another Large Lump of Cash as Novell Sale Looms
Few people appear to have actually paid attention to the source of the funds. We had a long discussion about this in IRC last night and we append the logs at the bottom (the relevant parts). While Novell’s whitepapers against Red Hat are being bumped up (we mentioned this twice last week and it still happens), there is also a great deal of distraction away from Novell’s trial against SCO. It is almost as though the bid came at a very strategic time, as we shall explain a little later.
Some Background
First of all, where did the bid come from? It’s a man called Paul E. Singer, who has a shady past; he also engages in some outrageous activities, which in some countries might actually land him in jail. Singer is the man behind Elliott and here is the type of things he is doing:
His other activities do not strike me as exactly praiseworthy, either. Buying up debt from poor countries and forcing repayment may make him rich, but it does not help out the masses in those places, people who are hardly to blame for the fecklessness of their leaders.
Men like Singer, operating under the radar, have distorted our national life and international reputation to such a degree that we are really having trouble figuring out what’s causing our current malaise. They simply do what they please and make the rest of us stick it. It seems like the NYT has finally done its job here of informing the public.
To put a long story short (in a nutshell), this guy probably belongs in prison. He is a parasite to entire nations. In the New York Times, Singer’s firm is described as a “vulture fund”. Here is another item about him, titled “Vulture Economics”
Elliott has done this in strapped developing countries such as Peru, Argentina, and the Republic of Congo where local press reports have labeled the company a “vulture investor.”
Peru, Argentina, and the Republic of Congo are all the countries we were able to identify as victims of Singer’s infinite greed. The word “vulture” in the name fits well also with Intellectual Vultures (another common nym for Intellectual Ventures, which we covered in the previous post). Intellectual Ventures is picking up patents from dead/dying companies, whereas Singer does that with national debt. He also preys on dying companies as we will show in a moment.
Novell’s Stake
Groklaw cites an article that says “Linux finally breaks even” [at Novell] and then it says: “So is that indicating that Elliott Management has it exactly backwards?”
“So… would that mean all the dirt on Microsoft or whoever else is behind the SCO attack on Linux that likely surfaced in discovery in SCO v. Novell would disappear from the planet?”
–Pamela Jones, GroklawNot really. We’ll get to that later. Linking to this article from a Microsoft booster, Groklaw speculates: “Taking profits… is that all this was about, maybe?”
Groklaw explored the background of Singer and his pseudo-firm (they contribute nothing). It links to many reports about Novell’s results and then comes to the realisation that Singer wants to take Novell private. “Private,” asks Groklaw, “They want to take it private? So… would that mean all the dirt on Microsoft or whoever else is behind the SCO attack on Linux that likely surfaced in discovery in SCO v. Novell would disappear from the planet?”
Nice timing, eh?
Here is the press release, which had Groklaw say: “What a coincidence. Just on the eve of trial in SCO v. Novell. Elliott says they own 8.5% of Novell’s common stock.”
The Inquirer links this disruptive news to the SCO trial as well:
JUST BEFORE the trial opens in the SCO v. Novell lawsuit, investment fund Elliott Associates has offered to buy Novell for $2 billion.
[...]
While Novell seems fairly likely to win, SCO seems to have a sympathetic federal judge on its side and will certainly try to sway the jury. Since the issue is over whether Novell actually owns the Unix copyrights then it could get messy.
For Elliott to benefit from its offer to buy Novell, it might be gambling either that the share price might increase dramatically after the trial is over and the inevitable appeals are decided, or that the shares might take a real battering during the judicial process, making the company relatively cheap to acquire, or both, in which case it might stand to make a lot of money.
Regarding this coverage from Boston, Groklaw says: “If this is a Microsoft play, I would imagine the antitrust complaints will be filling the sky in no time.”
Well, guess what? “Novell, Inc. Investor Alert: Offer under investigation,” says this new press release.
An investigation on behalf of current long term shareholders in Novell, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:NOVL) concerning shareholder claims over potential breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law in connection with an alleged unfair takeover was announced.
It’s not too crazy to assume or at least suspect that Microsoft is playing by proxy here. Microsoft did fund SCO in this way, in order to prolong the lawsuit against Linux. As we showed a few days ago, Microsoft is attacking Google by proxy and no longer hides this, either. “So Microsoft admits it is behind the investigations that have been initiated,” wrote Groklaw. “They make it sound like they just answered some questions, but the truth is, I remember very well Microsoft predicting this was going to happen. It *could* be a coincidence, I suppose. Snort. Anyone can lodge a complaint, and when that happens, it has to be investigated to see if it’s legitimate, I suppose, so anyone who wants to harass a competitor certainly can. By the way, would you like to know why more people use Google? I can tell you why I do. Because their algorithms work better and you can find what you are looking for reliably and quickly, and Google Search worked better FROM THE VERY FIRST DAY it was made available to the public, before there was any effect from any numbers of users.”
Watch Steve Ballmer and his buddies being a bunch hypocrites, suggesting that Google did not play by the rules. Who on Earth do they think they are to make such allegations? Wow. Just wow.
Let’s look at Singer again. Groklaw goes back to older articles from months ago. From December it pulls:
“Now the party is truly over,” Paul Singer, founder of the $16 billion hedge fund, wrote in a confidential letter to investors Oct. 15, obtained by MarketWatch. “The current economic and market environment resembles the one for which Elliott was formed.”
To do so, Mr. Singer is looking to to raise money from investors, the report said. Elliott could round up roughly $2 billion next year by inviting existing investors to commit more money, MarketWatch said, citing one investor who’s adding to positions and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Here is that magic number again:
Elliott, which Singer started in 1977, is looking to raise money to take advantage of the situation. The firm could take in about $2 billion next year by inviting existing investors to commit more money, according to one investor who’s adding to positions and spoke on condition of anonymity.
[...]
Most investment firms shun large, complicated bankruptcies and other complex situations, but Elliott actively seeks them out. As a former corporate-finance attorney and Harvard Law School graduate, Singer seems to relish the chance to control the outcome of investments through litigation.
The current bankruptcy wave should provide lots of complex situations for Elliott to delve into. Moody’s Investors Service counted 250 defaults by companies it rates, through the end of November. That’s already higher than any previous year.
$2 billion? What an interesting number. Coincidence? It was less than a month later (just after calling for raising of money) that Singer put money in Novell.
Elliott began acquiring Novell stock on Jan. 4 and controls about 8.5 percent of the company.
Almost exactly 2 month later he sent a letter offering to buy the whole of Novell, via someone called Cohn (see details in the log below). From late January we have this:
Hedge Funds Sue Porsche for Billion Lost on VW
A group of hedge funds filed a lawsuit on Monday against Porsche SE and two former executives, accusing the German sports car company of lying and illegally manipulating shares of Volkswagen A.G., thus costing the funds more than $1 billion in trading losses.
The funds — Elliott Management, Glenview Capital Management, Glenhill Capital Management and Perry Partners — say Porsche schemed to secretly corner the market in VW’s stock beginning in early 2008 as part of calculated attempt to eventually take over the company.
“Hedge fund Elliott accuses rival of espionage,” said Reuters on February 26th (less than one week before the Novell bid):
Hedge fund Elliott Management Corp sued Cedar Hill Capital Partners LLC on Tuesday, alleging its rival engaged in corporate espionage by misappropriating its proprietary software used for trading.
In February we find this:
Greenlight and Elliott Said to Help Ross Raise $1.1 Billion
[...]
Ross and his partners in the real estate firm Related Companies, Jeff Blau and Bruce Beal Jr., got the funds in a private placement managed by Deutsche Bank, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are private.
Here is some more coverage about the bid which came less than a month later:
Elliott said it would pay $5.75 a share in cash for Novell, a price that is 21 percent higher than Novell’s closing stock price on Tuesday. Wall Street’s initial response to the bid, announced after the stock market closed, was to anticipate the possibility of a higher offer
It’s unsolicited, so it’s somewhat hostile. In the logs below we show the connections between Singer and Icahn, who helped Microsoft take over Yahoo! without paying much at all. “Elliott Associates makes $2 billion unsolicited bid for Novell,” says this article.
New York based Elliott Associates manages more than $16 billion of capital for large institutional investors and wealthy individuals, and already holds 8.5 per cent stake in Waltham, Massachusetts-based Novell and has offered to acquire the remaining 91.5 per cent at a premium of 21 per cent over Novell’s Tuesday closing price.
It’s important to remember that Singer only put his tokens in Novell two month ago. The takeover is a recent idea, which dates back to the latest round of SCO-Novell litigation. Here is an interesting new post from Reuters. It’s saying that “Elliot’s Novell buyout [has] approach to making money”.
In fact, Elliott is no stranger to this type of deal, having made similar offers to a handful of small tech companies in the past. Typically, it owns large stakes in the companies it goes after. Last year, it was part of a private equity team that acquired MSC Software for about $360 million.
Elliott also offered to buy Packeteer, another small Nasdaq-listed tech company it owned a large stake in, but it was eventually acquired by Blue Coat Systems in 2008. Another company Elliott went after was Epicor Software, but that bid was unsuccessful.
In 2006, Elliott was part of a group led by tech-focused private equity firm Francisco Partners that took bar-code scanner maker Metrologic private. Two years later, Honeywell acquired Metrologic for $720 million.
Novell and SCO
There is something similar happening in SCO at the moment, amid seemingly-endless litigation. Groklaw has some new articles that include Novell’s objection to Yarro’s proposed loan to SCO. We wrote about it last week. Former SCO executives offer to rescue SCO financially while the company sells whatever it has left, except the lawsuit against Linux. “SCO Proposes Selling its Mobility ‘Business’… to Darl McBride,” reports Groklaw. This is pretty major because SCO fired Darl McBride a while back. Had he not been fired, nothing would be sold to him for a cash infusion to enter SCO’s coffers.
SCO’s Chapter 11 Trustee Edward Cahn not only proposes to let Ralph Yarro “loan” some money to the company at what Novell calls egregiously inequitable terms — inequitable to everyone but Ralph Yarro and the gang, that is — but now he proposes to sell SCO’s “mobility business”, which not long ago SCO said was worth millions, if I recall correctly, to another SCO insider, Darl McBride, for $35,000.
[...]
Update 2: Get a load of the assets going for $35,000. Not only do the copyrights and the source code go to the buyer, but there are 12 servers in the deal, 13 domain names, and 10 developer smartphonees. You find the list in Exhibit C Part 6, which begins with a list of the source code products involved in this transaction, but I notice something else.
This has been covered by the British press [1, 2, 3] and by Slashdot. They all cite Groklaw.
BLUSTERING BAD-BOY SCO is the zombie of the IT industry. The outfit keeps getting pummelled in court but it keeps on coming.
For ages SCO and its lawsuits should have died, serveral times. The company has run out of cash and its claims looks deader than Ramesses III without the bandages.
However, according to Groklaw the outfit’s Chapter 11 Trustee, former federal Judge Edward Cahn, has asked the bankruptcy court to let SCO sell off its “mobility business” for just $35,000.
Groklaw then wrote about “Petrofsky’s objection to SCO’s Yarro ‘loan’ motion”
Novell objected vigorously to SCO’s Motion for PostPetition Financing, the proposed Ralph Yarro “loan” to SCO which also involves granting “security interests and superpriority administrative expense status”, and now there’s a second objection, from Al Petrofsky. This will not surprise us. What would surprise us would be the court granting the motion. To give you a taste of the flavor of this filing, here’s the first paragraph of the introduction:
SCO is running out of money (no money to even pay lawyers) and Novell is blocking a cash infusion to SCO. How timely is that takeover attempt by Singer and his new, unspecified funds that he rallied for?
Novell’s Finances
For completeness, we also wish to remind readers that Novell's financial results actually disappointed investors (Groklaw apparently gets it wrong). Here is a report titled “Novell Sales Fall 6% and Disappoint Investors (NOVL)” (also in Fox and in Trading Markets).
Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL) reported fiscal Q1 EPS of $0.07, inline with consensus estimates.
Sales in the quarter fell 6% year-over-year to $202.6 million, and came in short of consensus estimates of $207.6 million.
Here is a video from a financial Web site that covers this and here is the discussion at LWN.
Other coverage of interest:
• Trading Update for Novell Inc
• Stocks Levitating Above Unchanged Mark In Mid-Afternoon Trading – U.S. Commentary
After the markets closed for trading on Thursday, software solutions provider Novell Inc. (NOVL) reported a higher profit in its first quarter, helped by lower operating expenses. Earnings for the quarter were in line with estimates, but revenues fell short. Looking ahead to the second quarter, Novell expects revenues to be flat sequentially.
• Novell Q1 Profit Rises – Quick Facts
Novell, Inc. (NOVL: News ) Thursday reported first quarter GAAP net income of $20 million or $0.06 per share, compared to $11 million or $0.03 per share in the prior year period. Non-GAAP net income for the quarter was $25 million or $0.07 per share, compared to $24 million or $0.07 per share in last year quarter.
• Novell Bids Farewell to NetWare
Novell NOVL reported mixed first-quarter results and our fair value estimate is unchanged. Total revenue fell 6% over the prior-year quarter, as a steady stream of maintenance revenue offset a 25% decline in software licenses.
• Novell says Linux now breaking even
• Novell profits increase in 2010’s first quarter
• Novell reports increase in profit despite sales decline
• Options Activity for Novell Inc
• Novell Q1 net revenues down 6% to $202m
A lot of people mention Novell’s cash reserves but rarely do they mention Novell's huge debt
Here is Novell India’s Country Head speaking about stimulus:
Sandeep Menon. Country Head, Novell India, said the budget reflects the governments confidence in the Indian economy. “I am particularly please to note that there has been no knee jerk reaction to withdrawing the fiscal stimulus, as I don’t think the time is right yet,” he said.
Last year we wrote about the rumour that Novell was selling at least parts of the company, but Novell probably didn’t see the Singer bid coming. Where did the money come from? To summarise the above, Singer sought $2 billion from investors back in December, then he bought part of Novell’s shares in January. He made the bid ($2 billion) just days before the SCO trial was supposed to resume; the funds he received remain secret because it’s a private firm and if he takes over Novell, then Novell’s secrets (including discovery in the SCO case) will also remain secret, unless they choose another route (which Singer et al can veto). █
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Security, Servers, UNIX, Windows at 5:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s government insider and executive is told off for his distasteful plan of fighting the plague of Windows botnets at taxpayers’ expense
USERS of GNU/Linux, BSD, and Mac OS X already suffer from Windows because they receive SPAM, get around outages (mostly caused by DDoS attacks), and they have their personal details stolen from compromised servers. Yesterday we wrote about Microsoft’s Charney having the nerve to suggest a universal Internet tax to clean up Microsoft’s mess (or at least trying, obviously in vain). Charney’s statement was extremely unpopular (more coverage in [1, 2]).
Mike Masnick explains why Microsoft’s analogies are totally improper:
Tank Szuba alerts us to the story about a Microsoft security exec suggesting that it might make sense to implement an internet usage tax to help fund a “computer healthcare system” to fix the notoriously insecure software that his company produces.
[...]
Has he looked at how well healthcare has been working lately? Of course, as with healthcare, the real issue should be preventative efforts, and those mainly start with Microsoft and how it architects its software. But I guess it’s easier to just ask everyone to pay a tax to hide that.
Joe Brockmeier, who left Novell not so long ago, explains the role of operating systems in all this:
The idea of Microsoft-funded PSAs advertising Linux as a way to avoid Internet-spread malware sounds much more reasonable than taxing all users to shore up defenses against Windows-based botnets. And it would give Microsoft an added incentive to work harder to solve the problem. If and when Windows-based botnets are a thing of the past, then the company could stop paying for the PSAs. At least that makes more sense than a general taxation for end users.
A contributor of ours, sebsebseb, told us last night about another botnet (among so many) being taken down in Spain:
Spanish authorities have arrested three men in an operation that has crushed a major botnet network of infected computers.
Given that one in two Windows PCs is said to be a zombie PC [1, 2], the above will have virtually no effect. The root problem is not botmasters but botmasters-friendly operating systems, in the sense that they are easy to hijack remotely. And now that Microsoft offers no patches for IE6, things are bound to get worse (not just for web developers, who have suffered enough). █
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03.01.10
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, UNIX at 3:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Linux and UNIX emerge as victors because they grow most rapidly while Microsoft’s Windows continues to sink and prominent developers like Skype and Adobe move on
POOR WINDOWS Mobile. Its market share is said to have fallen by about 30% in just one single year, so it could almost be seen as a dying breed. According to this, Windows fell behind Apple’s OS in terms of market share (it depends on how it’s measured, e.g. total number of phones ever sold, total number of active phones, sales per year, etc.) and another report confirms that UNIX and Linux are gaining the most (this agrees with other surveys):
Android and Apple’s iPhone OS were the fastest-growing smartphone platforms in 2009, with sales of the iPhone OS overtaking those of Windows Mobile, research company Gartner said Tuesday. Symbian and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry still lead the market, it said.
Take these numbers with a large grain of salt for reasons that we mentioned earlier.
One author has published this: “Dear Microsoft: Please Give Up on Mobile”
Dear Steve Ballmer, I believe it’s time to give up development of a mobile operating system. With all due respect to the multi-billion dollar empire you’re entrusted with running, the simple truth is that Microsoft is quite bad at developing user interfaces that are friendly and intuitive. Windows 7 is an improvement, but you’re far from being out of the woods. What’s more, it appears that your guidance, Mr. Ballmer, might be making the problem worse, especially if the things you said recently about your instructions to Windows Phone developers were true.
The publication known as Business Insider shows “CHARTS OF THE WEEK: The Collapse Of Microsoft’s Mobile Business”
The stagnation at best and unstoppable rapid demise at worst has led Skype to dropping support for Windows Mobile.
Ok, ok. Don’t freak out–it looks like this is just a step towards supporting the new Microsoft mobile operating system and not a move showing Skype is quiting MS-based phones altogether. Skype has pulled their app for Window Mobile, meaning new users will not be able to download it. Users with the software already installed will still be able to use it. According to GigaOm, it appears the reasons are that the software never quite achieved the best possible consistent user experience and Skype has grown tired of supporting it when they could be focusing on making a killer app for the Windows Phone 7 operating system.
But there is “No Word of Return,” according to IDG. The Microsoft boosters clearly describe this as a “blow” and Microsoft Watcher Joe Wilcox says that it’s not just Skype but also Adobe (amongst others because Windows Mobile is being abandoned by developers, which is hugely problematic without inertia [1, 2]).
More software developers should follow the lead of Adobe and Skype, which have abandoned Windows Mobile — what Microsoft now calls Windows Phone Classic.
Windows Phone Classic is a joke, it’s a relic. For those who wonder what it really becomes, it’s just crippleware to poor people, which Microsoft will call “Windows Phone 6 Starter” [1, 2, 3]. It’s an attempt to make something out of bad code. Microsoft says that it targets “emerging markets”, which is a very insulting term for poor people to whom Microsoft will throw an antiquated version of Windows Mobile (as though they don’t deserve something modern, which costs nothing to replicate anyway). Microsoft used exactly the same tricks with Vista 7, which is why sub-notebooks with Windows are so repellent. One can’t even change the wallpaper. “Are you kidding me Microsoft,” says one of their fans, “Why confuse with Windows Phone Starter Edition?”
Doesn’t Microsoft think there is enough confusion with Starter Edition in Windows? Why bring this to the smartphone world where you need to get out a simple and memorable brand and experience to the consumer? What about the Classic Edition we heard about, is that for real too?
The Consumerist wonders if Microsoft has completely lost it and will therefore try buying BlackBerry instead (RIM)*. The Consumerist is not alone here [1, 2, 3, 4]. The BlackBerry is almost purely proprietary (like Microsoft wants it to be) and while it recently adopted Webkit, IE6 is being phased out, which is problematic to Windows Mobile.
HTC is one of Microsoft’s biggest Windows Mobile partners and HTC is turning to Linux. Ouch. Microsoft must hate this.
The Google Nexus One is no longer the king of the Android hill anymore. The HTC Desire, unveiled Tuesday, is the latest must-have Android phone. The handset is basically a Nexus One on steroids and is sure to put a pit in the stomach of any new Android owner who thought their phone was the coolest.
The recent Internet Explorer attacks on Google in China [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] shed some doubt here.
Looking at Apple’s side for a moment, there is a big blunder there in China. To name it in an almost-chronological order:
• Apple: Underage Workers May Have Built Your iPhone
That iPhone you adore may have been built by a child.
• Apple admits using child labour
At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple.
The company did not name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China.
• Apple cites suppliers for violations
The supplier code of conduct and the site audits are intended to protect workers’ rights and to improve factory conditions.
Apple did not identify any suppliers by name or the countries in which the infractions took place.
To be fair, almost all phones are made in these factories, not just Apple’s. But how’s this for sweet irony:
• Irony at it’s finest: Microsoft giving away Macbook Pro’s as rewards. Icicles to jut from the ground in 3..2..
• Microsoft wants to give you a MacBook Pro
• Microsoft promotes Office by giving away… MacBooks
• Microsoft Office Promotion: Free ‘Apple Macbook Pro’ giveaways
At the same time, Apple publicly slams Microsoft for imitating Apple poorly, as it did a lot back in the 80s and is still doing to this date.
Apple chief financial officer Tim Cook took shots at Microsoft’s retail stores today in his presentation at Goldman-Sachs’ Technology & Internet Conference. The executive indirectly accused Microsoft of being afraid to actually launch a real retail effort and said Apple’s original plan in 2001 was a commitment to selling products to customers, not just a vehicle for an experience.
Apple retail is “not a pilot, not a test,” Cook said, referring to Microsoft’s decision to limit its initial plans to just one store each in Arizona and California.
Here are some new statistics which, if true, are rather striking.
According to AdMob, nearly three-quarters of Android users are male. That’s not to say you have to be a dude in order to qualify as an Android fanboy, of course — but the fellas sure do hold a sizable majority in Google’s court.
iPhone users, in comparison, are pretty close to evenly divided when it comes to gender. A full forty-three percent of Apple fanatics are female, AdMob finds. Palm’s webOS is a similarly balanced story, with 42 percent of its user base waving the woman card.
All sorts of things can be inferred from it, but we leave it for readers to decide. █
_____
* There were similar rumours about the troubled Palm, but although WebOS is proprietary, there is Linux in there, which Microsoft is allergic to.
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Posted in Europe, Google, IBM, Interoperability, Law, Microsoft, Mono, Patents, Red Hat, Samba, Servers, UNIX at 6:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
THIS post will be kept as short and compressed as possible due to lack of time.
Centrify
Centrify is a company whose genesis we explained before (Microsoft). We do not trust Centrify and its new product does not excite us because it brings Microsoft patents over to UNIX and Linux instead of encouraging standards. But anyway, here is its latest press release:
The new DirectManage Deployment Manager discovers UNIX and Linux systems within the environment, determines their readiness to join Active Directory, and enables administrators to promptly deploy the Centrify Suite to the targeted systems, and join the systems to the Active Directory domain.
The problem with Active Directory is similar to the problem with Mono and Moonlight. With Samba, Microsoft is at least forced to play nice (because of the European Commission).
Google
It is no secret that Google has been somewhat of a problem when it comes to software patents (just like IBM). We have already produced a lot of evidence, including videos that show Google executives talking about the subject, but here is more new evidence for the pile:
Google Patents Country-Specific Content Blocking
theodp writes “Today Google was awarded US Patent No. 7,664,751 for its invention of Variable User Interface Based on Document Access Privileges, which the search giant explains can be used to restrict what Internet content people can see ‘based on geographical location information of the user and based on access rights possessed for the document.’ From the patent: ‘For example, readers from the United States may be given “partial” access to the document while readers in Canada may be given “full” access to the document. This may be because the content provider has been granted full rights in the document from the publisher for Canadian readers but has not been granted rights in the United States, so the content provider may choose to only enable fair use display for readers in the United States.’ Oh well, at least Google is ‘no longer willing to continue censoring [their] results on Google.cn.’”
That is a soft patent.
Red Hat
Rob Tiller, a top Red Hat lawyer who frequently speaks about the subject of software patents, has just unleashed this post titled “Calling a troll a troll” (with the picture we used a few weeks ago).
It is clear enough what message Tiller is trying to get across:
There is increasing recognition in the FOSS ecosystem that troll lawsuits are a serious problem for open source. This is an unfortunate but real indicator of the remarkable success of open source. As the profits and profiles of open source products have risen, even trolls have taken note. So much for the good news. The bad news is that trolls view open source like a Somali pirate views a container ship – that is, purely as a target. Troll lawsuits are at best a tax on collaborative innovation and at worst, for a particular target, an existential threat.
Quintura
Speaking of trolls, here is what DownloadSquad has to say about Quintura: “Quintura chooses software patent claims as revenue stream”
I’m not a fan of software patents, and I’m particularly not a fan of companies who use them as a business model. While the concept of patenting software makes sense, in practice it is a complete mess.
Patents are not products. They are only a hindrance.
ACTA
On many occasions in the past we’ve explained why ACTA makes the patent system even worse. The president of the FFII therefore tracks developments around the ACTA and some days ago he showed a European “MEP ask[ing] for ACTA docs, [should] start a motion based on Lisbon Article 218 “parliament fully informed”.” He also wrote about a “New ACTA leak, it is a memo from the European Commission to the European Parliament INTA (LIMITED!)”
The cited posts are not in English [1, 2], but they hopefully help. The FFII’s president is Belgian. Yesterday he linked to this article and wrote that the “European Parliament points to the high cost of the patent system for SMEs, and the threat of litigation of patent trolls.”
This system needs mending, but ACTA takes it in the very opposite direction. █
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