Novell says it benefits from Microsoft IP deal
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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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In the wake of the news-making licensing deal between Microsoft and Novell over Windows and Linux interoperability, Novell has tapped Susan Heystee, its current vice president and general manager for global strategic partners, to manage the technical cooperation between the two companies.
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Blog: Novell takes a lot of heat for its patent deal with Microsoft and rightfully so. But there is much that the company is doing to advance the cause and state of open source in the industry.
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Novell Inc. of Waltham is getting a half-billion-dollar check from Microsoft Corp. to settle an antitrust case that&#39;s never been filed.
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Microsoft announced yesterday that it had reached a $536 million antitrust settlement with Novell and an agreement with a computer industry trade association that has long fought
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SEATTLE/NEW YORK  - Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O said  on Monday it agreed to settle antitrust lawsuits with Novell  Inc. NOVL.O and an industry trade group, marking the end of a  decade-long antitrust battle.
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Microsoft Corp on Monday announced antitrust settlements with Novell Inc. and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), ending years of legal wrangling.
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Microsoft Corp. has signed another Linux distributor to a patent-licensing and collaboration deal similar to the one it struck with Novell Inc. last year.
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Linux distributor agrees to licensing deal similar to the one Novell struck with Microsoft last year.
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No doubt you saw that Microsoft is coughing up $536 million to pay off an antitrust claim brought by Novell on behalf of its NetWare operating system.
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(InfoWorld) - Novell has published details of its landmark November 2006Â Linux partnership agreements with Microsoft. Novell published on Friday redacted versions of the three agreements it signed with Microsoft in its annual 10K filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, providing the public with itsÂ first detailed lookÂ into a deal that some see as critical to the future of Linux. The 10K filing had been delayed by an internal stock options review at Novell, which was concluded Wednesday. Under the terms of the agreements, Microsoft will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on licensing fees and sales and marketing costs over five years, including $240 million for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription certificates. For its part, Novell has agreed to pay Microsoft a percentage of revenue from open-source products. [ SEE ALSO:Â Microsoft, Novell defend pactÂ | Special Report:Â Microsoft takes aim at open source, LinuxÂ ] Linux advocates are expected to scour the documents for signs of how the agreement may affect Linux and whether anything in it will put Microsoft or Novell inÂ potential violation of the upcoming version 3 of the GNU General Public license (GPL). The GPL is used in licensing many components of the Linux operating system. Open-source advocate Bruce Perens said he would be looking to see exactly what Novell was given through the deal and whether there is any requirement for the Linux vendor to defend Microsoft's patent claims. "What I'm actually looking for is, to what extent was there a violation of faith?" he said. Microsoft has claimedÂ that Linux violates more than 235 of its patents, and because the deal offers patent protection to Novell users, it is seen as potentially driving a wedge in the Linux community. "Novell had a choice here, and Novell's choice was to be in the same boat with the rest of the free software community, or not," Perens said. Based on an initial reading of the documents, Perens said the deal does not appear to provide full patent protection to Linux users. "Novell did not get complete rights regarding Microsoft patents," he said. "For example, office productivity applications are specifically excluded. ... OpenOffice.org is excluded by name, WINE and Open-Xchange are excluded by name," Novell executives declined to be interviewed about the filings. "We've already provided the high-level comments when we announced the deal in November -- around making Linux and Windows work better together, the areas of tech cooperation, the covenants not to sue. All the customer-focus stuff that drove the deal," said Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry, via instant message. "The agreements provide more meat on the bones in support of those objectives." The patent agreement between the two companies seems to make it clear that Novell does not accept any of Microsoft's patent claims. Section 3.4 says, "Nothing in this Agreement shall imply, or be construed as an admission or acknowledgement by a Party, that any Patents of the other Party are infringed, valid or enforceable." Microsoft and Novell say the deal has helped push Linux adoption in the enterprise by promoting interoperability between the two platforms. Contrary to its image as a threat to open source and Linux, Microsoft is the chief source of Linux business for Novell, and the deal between the two companies has been a boon for SUSE Linux, said Justin Steinman, director of marketing for Novell's Linux and Open Platform Solutions, speaking earlier this week. "Microsoft was Novell's number one channel partner in the first quarter of 2007," he said. "We've seen 60 percent (first-quarter) growth in SUSE, year over year." Paul Roberts, a senior editor at InfoWorld, contributed to this story.
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Following through on one aspect of last year's collaboration deal, Microsoft and Novell today unveiled their new joint interoperability lab in Cambridge, Mass.
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Microsoft announced settlements Monday with rival Novell Inc. for $536 million and with a Washington-based trade organization that had aggressively backed the European Union's landmark antitrust case against Microsoft.
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Microsoft has paid $536 million to rival Novell as part of its ongoing programme to settle legal disputes that have formed the cornerstone of European regulators&#39; action against the software giant.
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As software disputes go, Novell&#39;s decade-long antitrust claim against Microsoft was particularly drawn out. That made the $536 million payoff announced Monday especially sweet.
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Microsoft has reached a $536 million legal settlement with Novell, resolving all outstanding antitrust claims by Novell against Microsoft involving NetWare and its other products.
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It looks like another case of Microsoft paying off to save legal hassles and possible bigger punishments in the future. Microsoft has reached a settlement worth USD 536 Million with the much in news corporation Novell.