Microsoft gives Novell mo' money

Mo' problems in Thursday's IT Blogwatch, as Microsoft and Novell extend their "deadly" embrace. Not to mention George Lucas's new look...

Eric Lai reports:

Microsoft Corp., which two years ago agreed to buy and resell $240 million worth of enterprise support subscriptions for Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system, will buy and resell up to another $100 million of vouchers.
...
The unusual scenario in which the world's dominant proprietary software vendor is helping to market open-source software such as Linux began in November 2006, when the two former foes agreed to a set of pioneering cross-licensing and interoperability deals, with Microsoft admitting that many of its business customers were also fans of open-source software.

Microsoft sold $156 million worth of support vouchers within 18 months to customers such as Wal-Mart, HSBC Holdings, Renault, Southwest Airlines, BMW and others ... About 100 companies have bought the subscription vouchers, with a "pretty good percentage" of them being new customers for Novell, said Susan Heystee, vice president and general manager for global strategic alliances at Novell.. more

Save all your kisses for Kelly Fiveash:

Microsoft plans to cough up $100m in additional subs to software rival Novell with the payment being made no later than 1 November, the odd couple confirmed today.
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Over the course of the past 18 months Novell has invoiced ... 65 per cent of the original chunk paid up by Microsoft. So the latest cash injection is undoubtedly good news for Novell revenues.

The unholy pact between the two firms has been consistently slammed by many open source fanciers who view the marriage of convenience as Microsoft's latest effort to grab a fee from Linux customers. Openistas have grumbled about the small print in the agreement between the two firms that says neither company would sue customers of the other for patent violations. In essence, Microsoft has scored a tasty patent protection and cross-licensing deal with Novell for its technologies.

Novell doesn't mind, though. In fact it thinks selling its soul to Steve Ballmer was a tremendous idea. Last year the dowry for Linux-Windows nuptials topped $350m. more

Todd Bishop explains:

[The partnership] includes a licensing agreement in which the companies agreed to refrain from suing each other's customers for patent infringement. That provision was seen by some as an implicit endorsement of Microsoft's contention that technology in Linux violates the company's intellectual property. Novell has publicly disagreed with Microsoft's position on that issue. Linux is a prime example of open-source software, created and freely distributed by a worldwide community of developers. Competing Linux vendor Red Hat hasn't entered a similar deal with Microsoft.

Microsoft has identified Linux as one of the biggest competitive threats to its Windows business. At the same time, Microsoft says the Novell deal recognizes that many companies want to run both operating systems. The companies say the idea is to help those customers make the two operating systems work smoothly together.

As part of the latest announcement, Novell says it will be investing an unspecified amount to provide more training and tools for companies that want to run Windows and Linux. more

John Paczkowski is astonished (again):

in 2001 Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer likened Linux to “cancer.” Later that year, Gates derided open-source licensing models like the one used by Linux as “Pacman-like.” That’s some heavy rhetoric. Certainly, it’s representative of the distaste with which Microsoft (MSFT) has viewed Linux and Linux vendors like Novell (NOVL) for the past decade.

So to hear back in Nov. 2006 that Microsoft was partnering with Novell to offer sales support for Novell’s SUSE Linux and cooperate with its old rival on Linux-Windows interoperability was astonishing–a bit like discovering that Stalin really sent Trotsky to Mexico for a nice vacation or that Itchy has shacked up with Scratchy.

And the unlikely partnership continues to astonish to this day ... Odd, isn’t it, to see Microsoft marketing Linux like this? more

Wade Roush says it's not just about Linux:

The relationship between Microsoft and Novell goes beyond Linux support. At their Interoperability Laboratory in Cambridge, the companies are also collaborating on virtualization technology—specifically, making sure that SUSE Linux runs well on Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor and that Windows Servers 2008 runs well on Xen, the open source hypervisor that’s at the core of Novell’s Linux virtualization software as well as almost every other virtualization system outside of those from VMware. The companies are also working together on document format compatibility, directory and identity federation (a Novell specialty), accessibility technology, and the Moonlight multimedia framework (a version of Microsoft’s Silverlight multimedia platform that runs on Mono, an open-source alternative to Microsoft’s .NET architecture).

The whole idea is to keep customers in the fold of the commercial software world by “building a bridge between proprietary and open source software,” in the words of Novell president and CEO Ron Hovsepian. And it seems to be working. more

But Roy Schestowitz sums up his spittle-flecked POV, thusly:

Along with Novell, Microsoft continues hijacking GNU/Linux ... [a] disgusting betrayal of the Free software movement and the many thousands of developers involved ... “interoperability” is just a cryptic code word for “software patents coupons” ... nothing but another attempt to stop Red Hat, Ubuntu and the rest of them, ensuring all of GNU/Linux is taxed and policed by Microsoft.
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Why don’t the reporters delve deeper into the issues? It’s just a shallow re-delivery of the message from this press release ... The purpose of the latest step from Microsoft (and Novell) was probably to tie more companies to mythical software patents in GNU/Linux, but there’s more to it. It’s also about the illusion that Microsoft is not anti-competitive
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The brainwash machine is hard at work ... Prepare for journalists and pundits to pretend that Microsoft plays nice with GNU/Linux ... the press is largely just a marketing funnel for Microsoft (and Novell) ... There is no balance. Reporting is gravitated towards money and power, not justice or truth. more

And finally...

• George Lucas's new look
  

Buffer overflow:

• Henry Bell: Tall Latte, Hold the Malware
• Dwight Silverman: Comcast to throttle Internet speeds of excessive users
• Jonathan M. Gitlin: Battling pricy textbooks with open-source texts, social media
• Mitchell Ashley: Hey, Dell, get off of my cloud!
• Chris Potts: Enterprise Architecture: the model or the people?

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Eric Lai: At Microsoft, program managers don't program, or manage
• John Brandon: Goofy Web 2.0 sites that don't really make sense
• Shark Bait: Cordless Consequences

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 21 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• iPhone firmware update woes continue
• Vista? At this rate, nobody will be using it
• Google/OHA Android speculation at fever pitch