A girl I know wrote gullible on the ceiling of her school. She kept telling people that the word was written on the ceiling - Charlie Demerjian
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Microsoft needs Novell
OPEN SOURCERERS may be getting worried about the recent announcement that Novell could be bought out by the investment outfit Elliott.
Elliott has a reputation of getting "maximum return on its investments", which is another way of saying an asset stripping operation. It has also offered a relatively small amount of cash for Novell, only $2 billion for the company, which has $1 billion in cash. However it is unlikely Novell will be able to tell this eight per cent shareholder to shove off unless the offer goes to a shareholder vote. By the time that happens, it is possible that there might be one or more other buyer(s) lining up.
Novell's SUSE Linux is lucrative with some good business customers. It might be flogged off to an outfit like Oracle, which could want a match for its other open source offerings, or IBM or HP.
But there are fears that if Novell goes, that could be the first domino which damages the commercial outfits based on Linux.
The next target might be Red Hat. Some think that if Novell's SUSE Linux business finds its way into Oracle's or VMware's or IBM's paws, it will be hard for Red Hat to remain viable as a stand alone company.
Certainly if one of the big corporate IT vendors gets its hands on SUSE then another one might want to acquire Red Hat to keep from being outclassed.
You might think that Microsoft, which does not want to touch Linux with a barge poll, would not want to flog it to its customers. However the Vole does make a fair bit of cash out of its relationship with Novell. While its street cred with the open source community is not very good, to say the least, it has put a bit of money into the relationship.
In addition, the Vole has a problem in that it is just a software company. IBM and its kind have been reinventing themselves as service companies that can push software along with hardware. The last thing Microsoft wants is for such service companies to be pushing Linux into the market where it sells its server products.
True, the likes of IBM and HP do that already, and most of them have deals with distributors. But with a strong brand like SUSE or Red Hat under their belts they could present very strong packages to businesses that do not include a sniff of Voleware.
So what is a Vole to do? Ironically it could end up in the somewhat unusual role of saving open source independence and a major commercial Linux distribution from being controlled by the likes of IBM, HP and Oracle.
If Novell and Red Hat remain viable as the independent companies they are now, then the status quo, which favours the Vole, will be maintained. Basically, buying a controlling share in Novell and perhaps also Red Hat would be a good defensive move.
Once the two companies are in Volish paws it can profit from every Linux sale that is made, rather than suffering.
What could go wrong with this cunning plan is that the open source community might throw up its collective hands and refuse to support SUSE or Red Hat software because of Microsoft's involvement. After all, in the community's mind, IBM, HP or Oracle would be a better master than the Vole.
If Microsoft can come up with a better way to prevent the sale of Novell to the vulture capitalist fund Elliott other than buying the company it will be much better off, but it will have to move fast. µ
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What a compasionate writing by Nick for MS. Like Linux worshipers singing together line "Baby i've changed... please come back" (from Eagles: In the new York Minute).
After all ...
It's a human sign
When things go wrong
When the scent of her(MS) lingers
And temptation's strong
Into the boundary
Of each married(Linux) man
Sweet deceit comes calling
And negativity lands
And it's no sacrifice
Just a simple word
It's two hearts living
In two separate worlds
But it's no sacrifice
No sacrifice
It's no sacrifice at all
Mutual misunderstanding
After the fact
Sensitivity builds a prison
In the final act
We lose direction
No stone unturned
No tears to damn you
When jealousy burns
(Sir Elton John - Sacrifice)
Microsoft doesn't need Novell. Your convoluted explanation why this might possibly be so is evidence in itself. Just because Microsoft might find itself in a worse competitive position if commercial Linux environment was dominated by Red Hat, that doesn't mean that MS wants to take on the nightmare that is managing Novell.
As for IBM, they chose to support two Linux distributions so they didn't have to care muchly whatever happened to any one of them. So they've got no compelling reason to buy Novell. If SuSE goes bad for them, then they sell their customers Red Hat instead of SuSE and eventually do a deal with a Canonical or suchlike to once again have two strings for their Linux bow.
Elliot need someone who will pay $1B for SuSE to make their purchase of Novell work. There's simply no one that stupid. The numbers don't stack up, so it would need to be a purchase driven by strategic rather than financial considerations. But if a company needs to control a Linux distro for strategic reasons they could partner with Canonical much more cheaply that buying SuSE.
As with Felix, MS would be jumped on instantly for it. Out of those listed think it would probably be HP if anyone. They already ship Suse as the chosen distro on their servers and laptops so already fits quiet well. And they did a year or so back (not sure if they canned the project though) of making a distro for themselves to use...might just prove easier to buy one instead unless the ideas been well sunk.
From a regulatory point of view I see IBM or HP in a better position to buy Novell than Microsoft. A buy-out would probably need regulatory approval. Are they going to allow a convicted monopolist to buy a "major" competitor? I don't think so.
Suse in anyone's hands isn't a threat to Redhat. Anyone who's had to deal with the Suse version of customer support will know why.