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Novell wants you to know that selling its soul to Steve Ballmer was a really good idea.
On the last day of 2007, two separate Novell execs tossed up blog posts congratulating themselves for agreeing to that "interoperability partnership" with Microsoft, a year-old deal intent on forcing an unholy relationship between Linux and Windows.
Novell chief marketing officer John Dragoon is so keen to justify the pact, he even pulled out some numbers from Gartner. "Linux and Open Source technologies continue their advancement into today's data centers where according to Gartner, 67 percent of data centers run some combination of Linux and Windows," Dragoon said. "Serving this growing market reality was the driving catalyst behind our interoperability partnership with Microsoft."
And he wants to make it clear that the company will continue its good work: "Of course there’s lots more to do, not just on the interoperability front, but automating the management of the growing mixed source world and the bridge between physical and virtual environments."
Chief technology officer Jeff Jaffe concurs, arguing that Novell's Microsoft pact gives customers exactly what they want. "As I said last year, our strategy will stick with Novell for years, because it addresses a need that customers have that no one else in the industry is ready, willing, or able to address," he wrote. "That is the co-existence and integration of the innovative, rapidly emerging Open Source world with the trillions of dollars of proprietary software in the market.
"We started 2007 with the momentum of the Microsoft agreement. With that single agreement we clearly positioned our company at the heart of this interoperability problem. So what happened? Bookings went through the roof as customers saw the value in this partnership. We brought new marquee customers to Linux. Revenue took off. We grew share."
Jaffe is particularly excited about Linux-izing Microsoft's answer to Flash and JavaFX: "When we announced with Microsoft, we committed to create technical interoperability. In 2007, our two companies came through!" he exclaimed. "After Microsoft saw Miguel de Icaza create the Moonlight technology in record time, Microsoft asked us to bring their multimedia Silverlight framework to the Linux desktop. Can you imagine that Microsoft is a Linux desktop ISV? We are turning the flywheel on interoperability!"
Yes, he pulls out the exclamation mark twice. His excitement may have something to do with the fact that Novell's Microsoft agreement affords Novell a great deal of money. As the company's recent SEC 10-K filing (PDF page 11) points out, Ballmer forked over $355.6m in 2007. It's no wonder Jaffe and Dragoon are trumpeting the marriage of Linux and Windows. ®
COMMENTS
If we speak about servers, Linux is the king
It is really interesting that many people defending Novell-MSFT deal are using same patterns of sentences and words. Has Web 2.0 marketing come that far?
You use Linux because you choose NOT to use MSFT products, genius. Not like Linux is some accompany Windows utility software. You choose Windows, Linux, BSD, OS X, AIX over some solution. It is up to the MSFT to make their products work, not up to Linux scene. If they don't work fine with Linux, they will be eliminated. No need to buy/bribe CEOs etc. for that.
Linux on servers is de-facto standard, others including IBM, MSFT and even FreeBSD is trying to convince companies to use their solutions. It is NOT Desktop, Linux is the indisputable king on server scene. It is not a favor or anything, you HAVE to make sure your product works with Linux or you are a joke on enterprise.
Just like OS X, it can be called minority but for multimedia scene, if your product doesn't support OS X, you are a joke.
Mono welcomed? Where?
Please point me to a single, enterprise or desktop credible (NOT a tech demo!) product which uses Net 1.x emulator aka Mono.
Mono and its creator puppet is a disgrace to entire open source community.
Any financial people could tell if Novell would continue to exist with their failed business model if money from MSFT didn't arrive? I really wonder that. Their financial boards were full of chapter 11 rumors until MSFT deal was signed.
Mono needs to die
Miguel should STFU and go away. He's a living example of Microsoft's bit of FUD that 'all OSS does is imitate the proprietary world.'
MIguel, you're a bright guy. Pull your head out of your nethers and build something *original* for once.
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