November 4, 2003
by sjvn01
0 comments

Novell to Buy SuSE Linux for $210 Million

From the company that turned away early Linux pioneers Bryan Sparks and Ransom Love, Novell Inc. is completing its reinvention by buying SuSE Linux AG for $210 million.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and the resolution of shareholder agreements. It all goes well; Novell expects the transaction to close by the end of its first fiscal quarter, in January 2004.

Novells move follows on the heels of its acquisition of open-source developer Ximian Inc. in August. These two acquisitions will make Novell, according to Novell representatives, the first billion dollar Linux software company.

In a Tuesday press conference from Germany, Novell CEO and chairman Jack Messman said that the deal will be good for both companies and their customers. He declared that SuSE was “the missing piece [for Novells recent embrace of Linux], the foundation itself, the platform.”

“Today, we plugged that. With SuSE we get one of the top two commercial Linuxes. Together, we can significantly accelerate Linuxs enterprise acceptance.”

Messman said SuSE was a strategic fit for Novell given its technical Linux distribution, staff, and number two position in the marketplace. Together, Lowry declared, “we can soon become the number one Linux company.”

The move was not just about Linux, the officials said. Throughout the press conference, Messman and Novell Vice Chairman Chris Stone, emphasized Novells complete support for open-source software and the continued work of SuSE employees on open source projects.

Richard Seibt, CEO of Nuremberg, Germany-based SuSE, said “our goal and vision was to see SuSE running everywhere in the world, to become the de facto standard for Linux. To get to that goal, weve teamed with Novell with its twenty years of experience. Our customers will get great value from Novells worldwide support and business partners that can support them locally.”

Seibt assured SuSEs customers that “Novells global reach, marketing expertise, and reputation for security, reliability and global enterprise-level support are exactly what weve been seeking to take SuSE Linux to the next level.”

In contrast to Linux vendor Red Hats recent decision to focus exclusively on the enterprise space, Novell will deliver both desktop and server distributions of the open-source OS drawing on Ximian Inc.s and SuSEs product lines.

Novell will also turn its worldwide technical support staff and resellers to support Linux. In particular, Stone pointed out that Novells approximately 25,000 worldwide reseller channel partners will be “great for Linux and that Linux will be great for them.”

At the same time, however, he admitted that while there is much crossover between SuSE and Novell resellers, few Novell resellers are currently trained in Linux. That said, SuSEs Seibt pointed out that supporting Linux could be as big a moneymaker for resellers.

In addition, Novell is negotiating with IBM Corp. to continue SuSEs eServer commercial agreements. IBM and Novell will apparently continue to follow SuSEs path as a major IBM Linux partner; Novell also announced that IBM intends to make a $50 million investment in Novell convertible preferred stock as soon as Novell officially acquires SuSE.

Officials from third-party vendors also praised the deal. Stone predicted that with Novells long history of working with original equipment manufacturers (OEM)s and independent software vendors (ISV)s, many such companies will now embrace Linux.
The move was “excellent for the industry,” according to Sam Greenblatt, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect of Computer Associates International Inc.s Linux Technology Group. “The excellent global support that Novell brings to the open source community will help continue market adoption of Linux from the desktop to the server.”

Analysts were mostly upbeat about the acquisition.

Gary Barnett, Research Director with London-based Ovum Ltd. said the announcement was extremely important for Linux and Linux adopters. “It propels SuSE into the big league in terms of its ability to deliver product innovation and customer support. SuSE now represents a serious and credible threat to Red Hat for market leadership – and as a result users of both distributions are set to benefit,” Barnett said.

Novell may have an uphill climb according to Bill Claybrook, the Boston-based Aberdeen Groups Research Director for Linux and Open Source.

“My feeling is that this is good for Novell and its Linux business.” Claybrook said. However, “if I were a company deciding between Red Hat and SuSE after Novell buys SuSE, I would be wondering what will happen to SuSE Linux longer-term. I think that SuSE Linux will have a very difficult time, even with the acquisition, overcoming the brand recognition of Red Hat.”

Dan Kusnetzky, IDC vice president for system software research, considered that a Linux distribution was just what Novell needed. “Novell has a very strong services offerings based on a declining platform. They needed to focus on a growing market and Linux is their chance.”

“This is a win for Novell if they can move at Internet speed and manage the corporate culture adjustments,” Kusnetzky continued. “With this move, Novell has put itself on Microsofts front burner and they need to move quickly to integrate Linux with their offerings.”

As for SuSE, Kusnetzky said, “SuSE needed capital. They were doing well for a Linux distribution but it still wasnt that much money. Now, SuSE will be another business line with a worldwide software and services company and this really expands SuSEs opportunities.”

A version of this story was published in eWEEK.

October 21, 2003
by sjvn01
0 comments

Who’s really behind SCO?

Is Microsoft behind SCO? Well, of course it is. Do you really think Microsoft needed a new SCO Unix license? Please!

But you can forget about Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer meeting by some high-tech Redmond cauldron at midnight to plot about how theyll get Linus Torvalds and his little operating system, too. Thats not how I see it happening. Microsoft loves SCOs actions, but it didnt start them.

So who did? To find the answer, Id like to recount a brief history of SCO and Caldera. Trust me: It explains a lot of whats happening now.

In 2001, Caldera bought SCO. Calderas leadership hoped that with this move the company could take as much of Unix and open sourcing as possible into Linux. It soon found that it wasnt easy to do. It also had high hopes of taking SCOs decayed, but fundamentally strong, reseller channel to sell Linux as well as Project Monterey, SCOs joint operating system project with IBM.

But almost immediately after Caldera bought SCOs operating systems division, IBM decided that it didnt want to release Monterey (now named AIX 5L) on the Intel platform. IBM wanted to release Monterey only on its own power-based pSeries computers. With this one move, IBM took out what Caldera had thought of as its future operating system. Caldera had planned on taking the best of what it could legally use from Unix, the AIX variant and Linux and develop a Linux system with the functionality that only Linux 2.6 is now delivering.

It was this IBM move that would eventually lead to SCOs first legal actions.

Then in the spring of 2002, the Canopy Group, SCOs majority owners, apparently decided they wanted a change in direction and maneuvered Calderas pro-Linux executives out of the company.

Canopy did this, I think, because it had grown tired of waiting for the Linux business to grow, even though Caldera had just helped create the enterprise business UnitedLinux consortium. I also think that the groups resentment toward IBM had never cooled.

It made that change by hiring Darl McBride and renaming Caldera The SCO Group in the summer of 2002.

McBride was an interesting choice. Although he had high-tech executive experience, he had never worked with Linux or open source. What he did have, though, was a good track record at getting investment capital; familiarity with Canopys executives; and a successful law suit against a former employer, IKON Office Systems.

Could Canopys executives have been thinking from that summer of taking legal action? In McBride, the group had someone who knew how to obtain funding and had no fears of marching into court.

No one (except the players) knows exactly what happened next. But the long and short of it is that IBM didnt settle.

Still, launching a major legal action entails major money, and SCO didnt have it. But in February 2003, Sun quietly bought a Unix license from SCO. In early March, SCO launched its IBM lawsuit. Coincidence? I dont think so.

Why would Sun do this? First, IBMs AIX and pSeries servers are major competitors to Suns Solaris and SPARC systems. Remember: At the start, this was SCO vs. IBM, not SCO vs. Linux. Secondly, Linux on Intel has eroded Suns vital Solaris/SPARC market far more than Windows has. The more trouble SCO can cause IBM and Linux, the better it is for Sun.

Since then the suit has grown bigger and broader. At the same time, though, Sun and Microsoft have continued to support SCO with further licensing deals, and SCOs legal bills have grown bigger.

So to continue its funding, SCO has had to go to BayStar Capital for $50 million of additional cash via a Private Investment in Public Entity (PIPE) deal. (Historically, PIPEs are very risky and used only by companies who cant get cash in any other way.)

And, as it happens, sources report that BayStar also invests in PIPEs on behalf of Microsoft. (BayStar spokesman Bob McGrath has disputed that claim.)

While Im no financial expert, Ive read SCOs public documents on the deal and Ive done some research on PIPEs. Because of that, it seems to me that SCOs PIPE deal is more favorable than most PIPE deals.

Is there a connection? Theres nothing I can prove, but out of the dozens of companies that offer PIPEs, I find it hard to believe that mere chance led SCO to such a comparatively good deal with Microsoft-connected BayStar.

So whos really behind SCOs actions?

First and foremost, its Canopy and SCOs current management. What really kicked it into gear though was Suns early financial support.

In short, SCO started the fire, Sun supplied the lighter fluid and Microsoft and Sun together are adding the firewood. There is no smoking gun, but there is a fire and smoke. That may not be enough for some people, but its enough for me.

A version of this story first appeared in eWEEK.

October 16, 2003
by sjvn01
0 comments

Survey: Windows Developers Say Linux More Secure

Is Linux built more securely than Windows? According to a new survey, Windows and Linux developers both say yes—and for the first time, ranked it ahead of Windows XP.

The September 2003 study from market-research firm Evans Data Corp. surveyed more than 500 North American participants, including VARs, ISVs, OEMs and corporate developers, according to Esther Schindler, senior analyst with Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Evans.

Linux scored high for innate security among respondents, more than two-thirds of whom “use or target Windows with their code.” Indeed, only 23 percent of the developers were primarily Linux developers (an increase of 4 percent from a similar survey six months ago).

“Its not all that surprising that Linux is viewed as more secure by software developers,” Schindler said. “Windows has had nearly weekly critical security updates from Microsoft, and three of four developers target Windows. Development experience talks.”

Windows XP, the winner the last time around as the most secure operating system, dropped from 14 percent to 8 percent in the new study. Indeed, Schindler said, 22 percent of XP developers picked Linux for security, compared with only 12 percent of that groups votes.

Server 2003 now takes second place to Linux with an overall vote of 12 percent, even though “it’s only being used by a handful of developers,” Schindler said.

That handful, however, believes strongly in the relatively new Server OS, she said. “Linux is considered the most secure by all developer segments, except one. Among enterprise developers, 17 percent say that Windows 2003 is the most innately secure OS, and only 13 percent choose Linux.”

Overall, confidence in Linux is growing. In a fall 1999 survey, only 34 percent of developers felt the OS was ready for mission-critical applications, compared with 64 percent today.

It’s not just Linux, though. Open source is also gaining ground in business development circles. In the spring of 2001, only 38 percent of developers used any open-source software modules. Today, Evans has found that 62 percent of developers are incorporating open-source code in their applications.

A version of this story first appeared in eWEEK.

October 8, 2003
by sjvn01
0 comments

Lies, Damned Lies and Research Projects: Microsoft & Linux

People love winners. Thats why we love research reports: They give us winners. Moreover, thats why companies will lie, cheat and steal to win in research reports. And when they cant do that, theyll hire someone to write reports in which they win.

Lately, Microsoft Corp. has taken to this last course like a duck to water with a report from Forrester Research that showed that its cheaper to build enterprise applications with Windows and .Net then it is with Linux and J2EE. Who would have thought that a report paid for by Microsoft would say anything else?

Forrester, realizing that this kind of “research” project was hurting its reputation, has decided to drop out of the “paid for, publicized product comparisons” business, according to Forrester CEO George Colony.

That hasnt stopped Microsoft from continuing on its course of publishing sponsored research results. According to its paid researchers, this practice shows that Small Business Server 2003 is easier to deploy than Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 2.1. I want to know whether thats before or after the 20-plus critical patches I had to install on my SBS 2003 before putting to use? That little point is not mentioned in the Veritest report, Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 2.1 Deployment.

Most people out there will only read the headlines and think that Windows has been proven better than Linux for enterprise program development or small offices. Anyone who pays closer attention knows better. If you have to pay someone to say that your product is better than the other guys, doesnt that mean something?

Microsoft (and many other companies that sponsor this kind of research) will say they didnt dictate the results or direct the research to reach a given goal. They will say they merely supplied the money to accomplish a study. Nonsense!

This is not to say that all research is crooked. Its not. Most magazine and other independent research is done with a desire to uncover the facts, nothing less and nothing more.

Im also not saying that if Microsoft went in and demanded a study showing that Windows for Pizza 1.0 delivered 12 percent more pepperoni per pie that it would get a report saying it had 12 percent more pepperoni. I am saying that when vendors sponsor a report, they always get to put a thumb on the scales. It may be subtle; it may not. But the thumb is usually there.

Believe it or not, vendors do run competitive benchmarks and allow the results to speak for themselves. They want to be able to know that when they say, “We deliver pizza and CPUs faster than Joes Pizza and PCs,” that theres a reasonable chance that no one will laugh in their faces.

However, when they find out that their server cant deliver the pizzas and Pentiums faster than Joes, you will never see those results. Paid-for-published results are always, always good for the company that bought the research. Now, sometimes the results you see out of sponsored research are fair, but in my experience, the good results usually come from apples and oranges comparisons or tweaked testing.

Lets start at the top: SBS 2003 is designed to be a one-server operation for small businesses with no more than 50 users. Microsoft chose to compare it with the entry-level departmental server RHEL ES. Both come loaded with additional applications, but SBS is set up for fast back-office deployment by novice administrators of small groups. RHEL ES delivers much the same goods, but it is more suitable for experienced administrators and can easily be used to build larger networks.

SBS 2003 does have a better upgrade path than its SBS predecessors, but RHEL ES doesnt need an upgrade path: Its already able to handle bigger loads. Looking at nothing else but these factors, a decisive issue could be whether the buyer thinks the company will grow in the four to five years while theyll be running this server. Microsoft, however, focuses on ease of deployment, not on upgrade paths. Thus, from the start, Microsoft is comparing apples and oranges.

Now lets see if we can find a tweak … Heres a good one: One of the requirements on which operating systems are judged is configuring “an external hardware firewall/router device providing Internet connectivity.” Windows users might think this comparison is fair, since Server 2003 doesnt have a decent internal firewall. Linux users know that Red Hat (and Linux distributions) already have excellent internal firewall functionality. Heres a good example of the report being tweaked in SBS favor. But how many people know both operating systems well enough to understand that? Answer: Not many.

In this report, Microsoft (via Veritest) chooses to focus on the surface. The whole report is about how easy it is to install things. Theres no mention of how well these things actually work—and thats always a serious concern. Moreover, SBS is meant for small shops with little in the way of IT. In addition, SBS 2003 was in beta when these comparisons were made, and major components (including SharePoint and Exchange 2003) were also in beta. By comparison, RHES is tried-and-true, while its comparable components, PHP/Nuke and Sendmail, are battle-tested by years of use.

SBS 2003 may indeed be easier for a new administrator … so long as theres no trouble. If there are problems (and which new programs dont have problems?), theres a lot more support already available for the Linux/open-source products.

Another problem with reports like this: The buyer gets to choose what points get played up. For example, the report praises RHEL: “The Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 2.1 deployments did have two advantages compared to Windows SBS 2003. First, the Linux operating system and utilities, as well as third-party applications, include source code through the open-source development model. This provides support for customizing and tailoring the operating system to meet specific deployment needs. Windows SBS 2003 does not include source code. Second, even though downloading and installing third-party applications for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 2.1 deployments required additional time and steps, it also provided deployment flexibility not found in Windows SBS 2003.”

Sounds good, doesnt it? But those lines are at the bottom of Page Four of the executive summary. For many administrators, those comments alone make RHEL more compelling than SBS 2003, but theyre not the ones most readers will see.

I could go on, but you get the point. The report is fatally flawed for any kind of objective comparison of the two packages.

This issue isnt specific to Microsoft, though. Many companies do it. A while back, I looked at a J2EE benchmark fight between Microsoft and Oracle. Along the way, I found that BEA and Macromedia had run similar tests. Guess what? All four companies researchers declared that their company was victorious.

Need I say more?

A version of this story was first published in eWEEK. >

October 6, 2003
by sjvn01
0 comments

Gartner’s Luke-warm on the Linux Desktop

Gartner Dataquest Inc.’s August 8th Linux on the Desktop: The Whole Story finds in most situations that spending money on a massive Linux desktop migration, “that won’t show a return on investment (ROI) within two to three years usually does not make sense.” That said, the authors add, “there are situations in which a move to Linux OS on the desktop will deliver ROI and does makes sense.”And what are these? According to Gartner, there aren’t many of them. In general, companies shouldn’t look to changing their desktops because of “Linux hype, myths and anti-Microsoft sentiment.” Instead, “an enterprise with older versions of Windows should estimate the costs and benefits of: 1) a project to upgrade its current environment to Windows XP, and 2) a project to move to Linux, and compare the ROI of the two alternatives before choosing a platform.”Gartner concludes that Windows is the better choice because of its lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for knowledge workers. But, Gartner’s analysts point out, “Too often, enterprises try to link the client-OS decision to the office product decision; these are two separate determinations.” In addition, Gartner add, open source office suites like StarOffice or OpenOffice can be used to lower the TCO in some circumstances on Windows.That said, Gartner recommends the Linux desktop primarily for technical desktops and “enterprises whose users require a narrow range of applications, such as data entry workers and some structured-task workers,” because of this group’s “far-lower migration costs to move from Windows to Linux.”

he Linux Office Supporters’ Take

Linux desktop supporters agree with most of Gartner’s premises, but disagree with the conclusions. Jeremy White, interim chair of the Desktop Linux Consortium, a newly formed trade group advocating desktop Linux, says, “I think that Gartner does make some good and intelligent points. They’re wise to make StarOffice or OpenOffice vs. Microsoft Office, a separate business choice than an OS choice. They go on to assert that the problems with Linux on the desktop are often application issues, and we agree that a valid point.”

But, White goes on to say, “Desktop Linux is for more people than Gartner would have you believe today. They project out a cost of supporting Linux desktop and retooling as a dramatic increase over a Windows desktop upgrade. The idea that Linux’s desktop administration is harder than Windows desktop administration is bunk. The inverse of that is the case. Linux tends to scale better.” For example, “one insurance company in Germany uses a single boot stack to run 8,000 desktops, with local desktop customizations with a total IT staff of four. If that’s not lower TCO, I don’t know what is.”

Jon Peer, vice-president of marketing for Novell/Ximian, agrees “with how Gartner segments the market, but there are some segments that are missing and they underplay some cost considerations.” For example, Peer believes that even while Gartner believes that Linux would work well for transactional workers, the savings are even greater than the ones Gartner cites.

In addition, Peer points out that Gartner missed one segment: the international desktop user. “Public sector agencies, especially in the European Union, see the adoption of the Linux desktop as an issue of state.” If they use Linux, they don’t have to export hard currency to the US, and at the same time they support local system integrators and VARs. This isn’t,” he continues, “anti-Microsoft, its pro-local businesses.” Yes, he agrees, “international is a special case, but it is a real market.”

Peer also says that Gartner doesn’t give enough credence to the economic impact of Windows continuing security and virus problems. And, that Gartner underestimates, “the degree of concern customers have about the increased costs of the Microsoft Software Assurance/Licensing 6 program and its end of life policies for Windows 95 and Office 95.”

Sun has recently introduced the Java Desktop System, which, despite the name is a Linux-basd office suite running on SuSE Linux. Nancy Lee, Sun’s group marketing tanager for desktop solutions, “To put this context, Linux on the desktop is still in the early stages of the enterprise adoption curve. It is only in recent years that must-have desktop applications have become viable on Linux, such as StarOffice, GNOME, Mozilla, and Evolution. These applications are sufficient for many enterprise scenarios such as call centers, where knowledge workers who need only a discrete set of applications can be quickly productive.”

She goes on to say, “There are hundreds more open source applications such as project management that are available today, and improving everyday as we speak, as well as new Java applications being developed that can run on Linux. These additional apps will provide the foundation that will allow the expert users to move over to Linux in the very near future (as predicted by the rapid growth over the next 5 years by industry analysts like IDC).”

Joe Eckert, SuSE’s vice-president of corporate communications, thinks, “That many clients are looking for freedom from licensing and from mandatory upgrades.”

Other Linux desktop players, like Dr. Frederick H. Berenstein, co-chairman of Xandros, a leading Linux desktop provider, thinks that Gartner doesn’t emphasis that just because you have a Linux desktop doesn’t mean you can’t have most Windows office applications, “It’s precisely in recognition of the potential costs cited in the Gartner report that the Xandros Desktop OS was designed to provide a familiar working environment that, when required, can flawlessly operate Microsoft Office without Windows. A company which recently purchased 150 Xandros Desktop licenses to replace Windows 98/2000 wrote to tell us that they saved $300,000 over what it would have cost to migrate to Windows XP.”

Xandros does this with the use of CodeWeavers’ CrossOver Office technology. Xandros customers aren’t the only ones that see the advantages of Windows applications on Linus desktops.

Rick Lehrbaum, editor-in-chief of DeviceForge, which publishes DesktopLinux.com, comments, “These days I run SuSE 8.2 and make frequent use of CodeWeavers’ Crossover Office to launch MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for when I need the mostest in compatibility with Windows-users’ documents. But a good 95% of my daily work is without even those hybrid situations.”

Eckert, agrees that being able to have your knowledge worker who’s an Excel whiz with his customized macros work with Excel on Linux using CrossOver is great, but “the training to get up to speed on the Linux desktop today is significantly less than any prior Linux desktops. I use Open Office, and friends and family are amazed at how similar its look and feel is to Microsoft Office.”

The SuSE VP also thinks that you can’t downplay the importance of the transactional, thin-client Linux desktop. “It’s hitting Linux right in its sweet spot.”

Finally, despite what Gartner may think of the Linux desktop market, Eckert insists, “We’re finding a groundswell of customers who are now looking for Linux on the desktop and we already have customers who are deploying well over 100,000 thin-client and fat-desktops.” For SuSE, at least, the whole story on the Linux desktop is that it’s already proving profitable for both them and their corporate customers.

October 2, 2003
by sjvn01
0 comments

Has Sun Shot Itself in the Foot Once Too Often?

Sun’s troubles are coming home to roost, thanks to McNealy’s failure to give up Solaris on SPARC and embrace Linux on Intel.

Let me say up front that I have a love-hate relationship with Sun. I love its operating system. I really like Java. And, I like the SPARC architecture. But I hate the way Sun constantly reworks its Linux and open source stance. I really dislike the way it keeps vexing its Java partners. Get over it, McNealy: You cant base a successful business plan on selling Solaris on SPARC anymore. In fact, you havent been able to do that for years now.

You put all those negatives together, and its not too hard to see why Sun has been in a long slump. For some reason, some people still think that Sun is not only holding its own as a server company, but its actually leading the server market.

I dont know what these folks have been smoking! In the latest IDC server report, its IBM by a neck at 30.1 percent over HP with its 27.7 percent. Sun? Its revenues have dropped by 19 percent quarter to quarter since last year, and their market share is now at 13.percent.

Dan Kusnetzky, IDC vice president for system software research, tells me that in 2000, Suns Unix business was bringing in roughtly a billion dollars, but in two years time, it was down to $685 million. Thats a heck of a decline.

Continue Reading →

Practical Technology

for practical people.