For Microsoft-Novell lab, eight is enough
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Cementing a peculiar partnership among rivals, Microsoft and Novell are opening an eight-employee lab to make products interoperable.
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A startup company is rolling out a family of workstations aimed at the technical computing space that offer clusterlike capabilities inside a single box.
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(InfoWorld) - Think Novell is sending more money to Microsoft under the vendors' intellectual property agreement than the other way around? Think again, a Novell executive said at the TechEd 2007 conference in Orlando, Fla., on Monday. As part of a multifaceted arrangement forged in November 2006, the two companies agreed not to sue each other's customers over IP issues. Included in this understanding was a series of payments going between the companies pertaining to this matter. It might seem that Microsoft, with its recent complaints about open source and Linux allegedly violating 235 Microsoft patents, would be getting more money from the deal. But that is not the case, said Justin Steinman, director of product marketing for Linux and Open Platform Solutions at Novell. "Actually, Novell gets more money," Steinman said.Â  Even when discounting Microsoft payments to Novell for access to Novell's Suse Linux, Novell still gets more, he said. Steinman attributed the disparity to Microsoft simply having more customers than Novell.Â  "They're paying for coverage for more customers," Steinman said. He said he did know the difference in the amount of money changing hands. Steinman recited the often-repeated mantra that the deal with Microsoft was what customers wanted. They wanted the IP issue to go away and they want Linux interoperability with Windows, he said. Microsoft, in a statement, said the dollar amount of the arrangement will vary. "Both Microsoft and Novell have patent portfolios, and as part of the patent agreement, each is paying the other for access to these patents. There is an upfront payment from Microsoft to Novell," Microsoft said.Â  "Then, Novell will pay Microsoft on an ongoing basis. The total dollar amount depends on how big certain Novell businesses grow over time. It is impossible to say how all payments will net out until Novell's business performance over the next several years is factored in." Microsoft under its agreement with Novell is selling Suse Linux subscriptions certificates to Microsoft customers wanting Linux. Other parts of the agreement have had the companies working to support virtualization of each other's operating systems. They also are aligning on standards-based systems management and directory and identity interoperability. Additionally, the companies are ensuring document formatting compatibility between Microsoft Office and Novell OpenOffice documents. Asked about the Novell-Microsoft agreement, an industry analyst Monday said he did know its financial details. "I don't know what the numbers work out to," said analyst Al Gillen, research vice president at IDC. But he said the contract makes sense in that customers would not want Microsoft suing them over IP issues. "In that context, from a customer's perspective it's good," Gillen said. "I realize the [open source] community dislikes it." Xandros and Microsoft announced a similar arrangement regarding Linux at TechEd on Monday. In other developments at TechEd Monday, Microsoft's Steven Martin, director of product management in the company's Connected Systems Division, stressed Microsoft's prominence in the SOA space. "What we're doing is we're helping customers understand the use of Windows Server, the .Net Framework and BizTalk Server to build service-oriented applications that differentiate the business," Martin said. Microsoft is touting its on-premise software as well as its hosted BizTalk Services platform, which provides for SOA across the Internet, said Martin. While companies such as Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, and IBM perhaps have been more visible in promoting SOA, Microsoft is a player as well, Martin said. "We've been very active in service orientation going back to 1999, [when] we partnered with IBM to build the Web services specifications (known as WS-*)," Martin said. We haven't latched onto all the buzzwords but weâve been very active in helping customers build service-oriented solutions for many, many years. We were pioneers in this space," said Martin. Microsoft at TechEd also said the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance, or MDOP, will mostly be ready in July. The product set enables better management of Windows desktops. "We're trying to address the deployment and the manageability issues that our customers told us they were having in managing their desktops," said Winni Verhoef, senior product manager for Windows product management at Microsoft. Most components will be generally available in July, including the Windows Vista versions of SoftGrid Application Virtualization, for turning applications into centrally managed services, and Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset, for system repair and data recovery. Also part of MDOP are Advanced Group Policy Management, for change management and versioning, and System Center Desktop Error Monitoring, which identifies the impact, probable cause and resolution for failures in system crashes. Another component, Asset Inventory Service, providing inventory data via a hosted service, will be released in a beta version July 1. General availability is planned for fall. MDOP requires that users be part of the company's Software Assurance program and costs about $10 per desktop per year. A server running Windows Server and A SQL Server database also are needed. A Microsoft official at TechEd also explained the Visual Studio Shell, planned for inclusion in the upcoming Beta 2 of the newly named Visual Studio 2008 development platform. With Visual Studio Shell, Microsoft partners and developers can build versions of Visual Studio customized to specific application areas and bearing partners' brands. Microsoft's previous solution in this area, Visual Studio Premier Partner Edition, did not allow custom branding, said C. Joe Marini, group product manager for Developer Marketing in the company's Visual Studio Integrated Partners group. The shell features base capabilities for developers to build their own tools and lacks Microsoft development languages such as Visual Basic of C#. Enterprise developers also could use the shell. "The whole idea is rather than building your tool IDE, you use ours as a starting point," Marini said. Microsoft benefits in that its Windows and .Net technologies are promoted, Marini said.
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Microsoft will offer up to $600 per server (up to a maximum of $15,000) to companies who agree to switch from Novell to Windows servers, it has been revealed.
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Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. announced the opening of an "interoperability lab" in Cambridge. At the 2,500-square-foot facility, a priority of a lab team made up of Microsoft and Novell engineers will be to ensure interoperability between Microsoft and Novell virtualization technologies, the companies said. Plans for the lab were revealed last fall as part of a collaboration agreement between ...
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Looking to tap into discontent with Microsoft, Novell is set to deliver this week a package of Linux-based software for the PC that includes Office-like productivity applications, along with e-mail and Web browsing programs.
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Novell is consolidating operations in an effort to remove overlap between its four business units. The Waltham, Mass.-based software vendor is folding its Nterprise and SuSE Linux operations into a single
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There is a fascinating article on Groklaw called Searching for Openness in Microsoft's OOXML and Finding Contradictions. One of the most relevant comments in the article is "So, they plan to be the only one in the Linux world that can actually interoperate with Microsoft. How do you think they will achieve that? By sharing? On the contrary, they already market themselves as uniquely interoperable, which means they get to interoperate and you don't, unless you are their paying customer."  There is also the Novell comment, "Only Novell has Microsoftâs endorsement as its partner to drive Linux-Windows interoperability."
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After announcing a $536 million cash infusion by Microsoft, Novell has unveiled its desktop operating system for businesses - based on Linux. Built atop SuSE Enterprise Server, Novell Desktop Linux 9 features leading open source applications such as OpenOffice.org and Firefox alongside enterprise features.
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Pokes tongue out at Microsoft Novell is gunning for a chunk of the office market share from Microsoft with the release of its open workgroup suite for small businesses.â¦
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âOverall,â says Ryan Faas in his computerworld.com review, âiWork â08 is beautifully designedâa compelling product and great value for consumers and small business alike. It brings tons of innovation over previous versions of iWork as well as many office suites on the market. And it turns typical office tasks and documents into creative outlets. That it offers all that it does for $79 is, frankly, hard to believe.â
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Not since SCO has there been a company so reviled by the open source community as Novell following its deal with Microsoft.  Already there are some clear signs of the negative effects of that anger: senior coders have left the company; Novell has posted a loss for the most recent quarter; and there are calls for a boycott of Novell products â to say nothing of imminent changes to the GNU GPL that might well nullify the entire Novell-Microsoft deal.  Some people are rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of Novell crashing and burning completely, but such a development could actually turn out to be one of the worst things to happen to free software.
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Shared research produces fast, tiny memory ideal for consumer devices.
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LicenseWise and Windows Vista Hardware Assessment help users navigate Microsoft offerings.
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Blog: So many cores, so little support. Microsoft's Ty Carlson knows the software industry has lots of work ahead to satisfy future multicore processors.
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A small group of testers is now putting Windows Vista Service Pack 1 through its paces.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has appointed an executive to lead its controversial efforts to make its software more interoperable with Novell's Suse Linux. The company has named Tom Hanrahan to the new position of director of Linux interoperability, reporting to Sam Ramji, director of platform technology strategy. Ramji runs the Microsoft Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft tests its products to see how they interact with Linux and other open-source software. Hanrahan's duties will include running the new Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Lab,Â announced in November when the two companies formed a patent-licensing and interoperability deal. The deal will, in part, ensure Novell's Suse Linux works better with Windows in environments where the two OSes co-exist. Experts from both companies will work in the Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Lab to test and build interoperable offerings. As part of their deal, Microsoft and Novell also are co-marketing each other's technology, and Microsoft is offering Suse Linux maintenance and support coupons to customers who want to run the OS in their IT environments. But Microsoft's ability to do the latter could be threatened by the passage of the GNU GPLv3 (General Public License Version 3) in light of bold claims by the vendor thatÂ it will seek damages for 235 of its patentsÂ it says both Linux and other open-source software violate. A provision of GPLv3 provides patent protection for anyone receiving software, such as Linux, distributed by the license. Microsoft executives also have used the Novell deal as the blueprint for how it wants companies violating its patents to pay for them, while Novell insists to this day its Linux distribution does not infringe on any Microsoft patents. Prior to joining Microsoft, Hanrahan was director of engineering at the Linux Foundation. He also has served as senior program manager in charge of software development and testing at IBM's Linux Technology Center in Oregon. Before that, he spent 11 years at Sequent Computer Systems and several years working for Intel.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!