DailyTech - Dell Joins Microsoft and Novell to Promote Linux

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IT Dell Joins Microsoft and Novell to Promote Linux
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - May 7, 2007 6:02 AM

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27 comment(s) - last by rsmech.. on May 8 at 11:30 AM

Dell jumps on SUSE Linux for its enterprise machines

This week Dell Inc. announced that it will join a group created by Microsoft and Novell to support and migrate its existing and new Linux users over to Suse Linux. Currently, Dell is the only major systems provider to be part of the Microsoft and Novell collaboration and Microsoft indicated that it expects more to join the party.

The pact between Microsoft and Novell is to support those who use Windows to work seemlessly with those using Linux and vice versa. Under the partnership, both Microsoft and Novell pledged to develop products and tools to give Windows and Linux better co-operation in the office and enterprise space.

Under the agreement, Dell will purchase SUSE Linux Enterprise Server licenses from Novell. Dell will also launch support services as well as marketing programs to promote the support of SUSE Linux. Dell hopes to also introduce new users to the Suse Linux operating system as well as turn over a new leaf with existing Linux users.

Despite the collaboration between Dell, Microsoft and Novell, Dell last week announced that Ubuntu Linux would be its first officially supported Linux operating system to ship on Dell systems. Ubuntu gained popularity in the last few years due to tight integration of packages, ease of use, flexibility and support.

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Microsoft and Linux

By wannabemedontu on 5/7/2007 8:29:55 AM , Rating: 2

Just doesn't sound right.

RE: Microsoft and Linux

By nayy on 5/7/2007 9:25:07 AM , Rating: 1

Windows is not the only revenue source for Microsoft,
They probably realize that some businesses prefer Linux for stability and security (not because it's free), but there is no reason not to make money from them.
My guess is that will be seeing Linux Versions of some Microsoft corporate software soon.

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By lukasbradley on 5/7/2007 9:49:03 AM , Rating: 3

My business prefers LINUX because it is free.

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By masteraleph on 5/7/2007 11:09:12 AM , Rating: 2

Most don't, since most businesses that use linux are also buying support contracts from Novell/RedHat and therefore are not, in fact, getting linux for free.

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By mindless1 on 5/7/2007 7:10:48 PM , Rating: 3

Depends on what you call "most". The number of small businesses greatly outnumber the large, and may also need less complex solutions. You will tend to find larger businesses have support contracts regardless of OS, so in some cases if we only consider OS cost, Linux is free in that regard, but is only one of several costs eliminated but when a server with per-client license fees, it can be a significant savings.

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By Jack Ripoff on 5/7/2007 10:20:59 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Windows is not the only revenue source for Microsoft

It's probably the major one, though.

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By tdawg on 5/7/2007 2:20:46 PM , Rating: 2

I'm pretty sure Office is the major revenue product, with Windows somewhere behind in second.

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By Jack Ripoff on 5/7/2007 7:08:53 PM , Rating: 2

This surely doesn't make Windows sales less significant (even because you need MS Windows to run MS Office in the first place).

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By mindless1 on 5/7/2007 7:15:52 PM , Rating: 3

While windows sales are certainly significant, MS could not completely ignore that there is a large uptake of Linux in the world and lacking interoperability would mean a sales loss of one kind or another. Ultimately making a product more versatile, compatible, will be the best long term solution to keep the product viable.

We must recognize that a large part of why MS had such great success in the OS arena was that these (were) the early, infancy years of widespread PC and workstation adoption. It is a situation that can only occur once in the history of computing to have the initial implementation, the computer revolution as a technological age.

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By bupkus on 5/7/2007 11:27:40 AM , Rating: 2

Can I hope then that my MS Action Pack Subscription will some day soon include such software... aside my "how to compete against Linux" demonstration cds?

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By Samus on 5/7/2007 2:29:29 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Just doesn't sound right.

Took the words right out of my mouth. If Microsoft is infact endorsing linux, it can only be to their benifit somehow, financially.

I'm scared to know exactly what they're up too...

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RE: Microsoft and Linux

By mars777 on 5/7/2007 10:33:12 PM , Rating: 2

Windows Vista will some day get the pack, WinFS and that is all that could be achieved from the windows NT kernel and from avalon.
It is too complex and lack upgradability.

Their developers said it.

I think that they are preparing ground for a major change in windows later after 2010.
All they will need is a a change in licencing and a .NET framework working on a System5 (unix) kernel.
Linux is not a wrong choice for them - all they have to write in the EULA is:

- cannot be used unless having a support license.

and check for the online support license when booting their OS.

this wouldn't break a GPL license.

Windows could some day be a linux :P

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Joines??

By Crusader on 5/7/2007 8:40:01 AM , Rating: 4

You've gotta be kidding me. I get up early in the morning to and yet am still not capable of JOINES.
How about "joins".

This place is horrible for both spelling and grammar (and yes, frequent abuses of the language are annoying. Its not relegated to just Tuan by any means either.

If you can match my 50K salary, I will raise the professionalism of this site in English, as well as provide an Español translation.

DT employees- have yourself a cup of coffee before posting, please.

RE: Joines??

By Crusader on 5/7/2007 8:41:39 AM , Rating: 2

As I notice many flaws in my own post, the author of this article can at least edit his spelling error.

Time for another cup of coffee.

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RE: Joines??

By Zirconium on 5/7/2007 9:35:17 AM , Rating: 2

You are probably going to get modded down because your post doesn't actually reference the substance of the article. However, I do agree with you; spelling and grammar in a news site is important. That said, DailyTech is free, so I guess you get what you pay for. Considering that sometimes they post information before other guys (although most of the time it is the other way round), I'd say the reader comes out ahead. I am spending less of my time here and more on other news sources, partially because the articles are poorly written at times.

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RE: Joines??

By Crusader on 5/7/2007 9:44:21 PM , Rating: 2

My only response is that we do pay for the site, with our eyes as they cross the ads. Or when we click on them.
Theres many other tech news sites I can visit where I pay the same amount, but I still prefer DTs news.. regardless of the amateur language ability.

Its kinda part of the fun of this site because I'm amazed at the consistency of the errors. Everyone screws up the English language, as its one of the hardest to master in the world. Natives never master it.
But I'd have to try to screw up as much as this site does.
That said, its become half the fun due to the fact that it is so consistent.

It blows away the inq though, that 13 year old testosterone induced site over emphasizing anything and everything is simply unbearable to read. Retarded and juvenile sayings like DAMIT and Windows ME2 ect have caused me to finally quit visiting that hole.
Content of news > Lingual ability. But its still amusing.
I'm not usually a nitpicker because I myself am usually only average at english.

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RE: Joines??

By mindless1 on 5/7/2007 7:18:27 PM , Rating: 2

Sometimes, quantity > quality (when it's nitpicking).

If you'd rather the news article didn't exist so the author could spend more time per article on other articles, your opinion might not be shared by all.

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RE: Joines??

By KaiserCSS on 5/7/2007 9:55:55 AM , Rating: 2

The funny thing is, Firefox has a built-in spell checker.

IE7 at DT?

I shudder at the thought.

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Linux in the mainstream ? Not in this decade.

By silver on 5/7/2007 8:39:04 AM , Rating: 5

Companies like Dell, HP/paq and the rest offset the cost of their systems with ad-ware like AOL, Earthlink, Symantec, McAfee and other residual-returning subscription applications. Without the kickbacks from these companies, the cost of the system is going to increase.
Further, the average user has absolutely no idea what Linux is. Many people would probably try it since they are so frustrated with Vista however it wouldn't take long at all for _ANY_ distro of Linux to fail to meet the consumers needs. I'd give it about 2 hours after the OOBE and they'll be on the phones calling for tech support as they can't get their networked printer to work, their wireless to connect or install Quicken.

RE: Linux in the mainstream ? Not in this decade.

By masteraleph on 5/7/2007 11:11:09 AM , Rating: 2

Reread the article. It's talking about linux on servers, not linux on PCs. There is, however, an article about Ubuntu on Dell PCs, but that's separate from this one.

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RE: Linux in the mainstream ? Not in this decade.

By glitchc on 5/7/2007 11:13:07 AM , Rating: 2

Good point, but off the mark with regards to the article. Enterprise systems from Dell never come with the bloatware found on consumer PCs. This even applies to servers/systems loaded with Windows Server 2003, the only Windows version to be had on such systems.

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Certainly Interesting.

By Mitch101 on 5/7/2007 11:47:53 AM , Rating: 2

Well its Certainly Interesting to see Microsoft doing some support for Suse/Novell Linux.

Not sure what percentage Novell makes up anyhow but one thing is for sure that one version of Linux needs to stand out above the rest and be a single source of support from a major corporation. Linux whether their community likes it or not needs to be less fragmented than what it is. While we use Linux for various specific applications what works on RedHat doesnt necessarily work with Debian. Applications or Drivers. At least Microsoft may give Linux the leg up it needs with Novell.

I certainly dont see Microsoft losing or giving away any market share to linux but it would be nice if we could all agree on one distro of linux being the best one to use. Ask 10 different people using Linux and they will all give you different reason for liking a certain distro. Its nice to be different and have that flexibility but its a model that really doesnt work well at a high level. I personally like Debian.

BTW linux is not really Free. Lot of gray area in there. Open Source doesnt translate to free either.

If linux was really free then Apple couldnt charge for its OS.

Dont mention BSD. They arent linux even though it looks just like linux.

RE: Certainly Interesting.

By hiscross on 5/7/2007 12:14:46 PM , Rating: 2

MacOS X has it's base in FreeBSD, not Linux. Further Linux is Kernel, not an distro or OS. MacOS X uses Mach kernel.

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RE: Certainly Interesting.

By Jack Ripoff on 5/7/2007 2:12:39 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
BTW linux is not really Free. Lot of gray area in there. Open Source doesnt translate to free either.

It is free as far as licensing costs are concerned. CDs, shipping, internet bandwidth, support and etc. are a different matter entirely. Not that they aren't important, it's just that when we say "Linux is free" we mean there's no licensing costs.
(BTW, we are talking about "free as in free beer" here, not "free as in free speech", which is another different matter as well)

quote:
If linux was really free then Apple couldnt charge for its OS.

Why exactly Apple would not be able to charge for Mac OS X? What does it have to do with Linux? There's absolutely no relationship between the two as far as code is concerned (system design is not copyrighted AFAIK).

quote:
Dont mention BSD. They arent linux even though it looks just like linux.

It's the other way around: Linux looks like BSD.

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which linux?

By sprockkets on 5/7/2007 11:10:43 AM , Rating: 2

Yeah, probably should be worded SuSE Linux. Ubuntu is nice because it is community supported, but I don't like how if I want KDE it is a separate install iso, but that is just me.

I'm just glad ZMD is being killed in openSuSE 10.3.

Microsoft would probably be embraced more if Steve Ballmer wasn't so anti-linux. You can still have Windows and the benefit of not changing it as often as Linux changes, but still do more to promote yourself, like, making things more cross platform.

Let's get a few things straight

By stmok on 5/8/2007 1:23:05 AM , Rating: 2

(1) Novell does NOT represent Linux. Linux is a community. NOT a single entity. (If it were, MS would've taken it down years ago!)...There is NO one company that can own Linux. That's fact.

(2) Microsoft's biggest money makers are licenses from Windows, MS Office, and their business solutions (as well as their support contracts). It consists of over 2/3rds of their profits. They don't make much for their consoles or media products like the Xbox line or their Zune. Go ahead, check out their financial statements in 2006, etc. Its all out for the public to see. Bundling Windows to systems provides MS a substantial chunk of their profits.

(3) Novell bought SuSE out, and use that as the basis of two projects. Novell = US-based company. SUSE = Germany-based.

(a) OpenSUSE. This is the community version of SUSE.

(b) SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) and SLES (Server). This is the commercial variant. Essentially the same thing but with different colours and has support for some proprietary bits. Includes support contracts, etc.

(3) The Novell-MS "Interoperability Collaboration" and "intellectual property licensing" agreement is a delibrate attempt to undermine the commercial side of Linux.

Essentially, they agree not to take legal action on each other's customers if there's any violation of patents. The thing is, it only covers Novell customers. It doesn't cover anyone else's customers like Red Hat, Oracle, IBM, etc, etc.

Community based distros like Debian and Slackware are exempt from this threat as well. (Basically implying Linux is nothing more than good for enthusiasts, geeks, hackers, etc).

Effectively, they're scaring customers into specifically buying Novell's distro. (Which MS also collects a percentage of $$$). Its really about the possible legal action MS can take on those who do NOT pick the MS supported Novell solution.

Everyone knows, opensource's weakness is legal action from patent violations. (Typically, this is solved by coding around the problem once the party details what the violation is). But in MS's case, they won't say anything about it! This is because they want to keep that hanging over the commercial side of opensource! (specifially Linux).

Days after the agreement, MS's CEO (Steve Ballmer) went on the offensive.

Ballmer: Linux users owe Microsoft
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;83959...
(Which reaffirms alot of opensource community's suspicions. ie: NEVER trust Microsoft.)

This threat of "possible litgation" they have, is what you can refer to as "leverage". In reality, its nothing but a bluff. MS isn't gonna start a massive "Mutually Assured Destruction" patent war. A consortium of patent holders supporting the opensource side is gonna come down on them like a ton of bricks. (members include IBM, Nokia, Sun, Red Hat, etc).

What's really funny about this "Interoperability Collaboration" is that no one has benefitted from it!

Mono Project is an opensource .Net implementation. You'd expect projects like these will gain the most from this collaboration with MS...Guess what? Miguel de Icaza (author of Mono who's working at Novell) has confirmed he has got NOTHING from this so-called collaboration.

(4) As a result of this agreement, many in the opensource community don't like Novell, and are keeping away from their solutions in fear of possible patent issues. (Barely any of them like MS to begin with, so that's no brainer).

One reaction to this event was the quitting of the Samba head developer from Novell. (Samba is a nice bit of opensource software that allows Linux/Unix users to connect to Windows networks). He moved to Google earlier this year.

While Novell-MS agreement doesn't not technically violate the GPL v2 (license that Linux uses), it DOES violate the intent of it.

As response to this, GPL v3 is trying to address this. (Any attempt to make similar "pacts" will be illegal, and the party using GPL v3 software must re-write their own solution. ie: They cannot use GPL v3 code.)

(5) MS is hyping up about "interoperability" because they need to get the EU monkeys off their back.

I doubt many of you know this, but the point of this EU anti-trust case, is to get MS to open up its protocols, so anyone can develop a solution such that you can work with Microsoft solutions. It is NOT to open up all the secrets of MS for the world. The result is to introduce competition such that the end-users (that's you) will have a variety of choices to pick from.

MS is trying to resist in every possible way. Things like delibrately dragging the case out, etc, etc. (The EU people know this, and are considering the break up of MS as a possible option. Something the US DoJ completely fail to do).

(6) Fact is, if MS is really serious about interoperability, they would've opened up things like their doc format. (Which will render both ODF and MS's own OOXML or docx pointless). It will allow ANYONE to write office apps that run on ANY OS, such that anyone can open up a doc file on any system they please. (Windows, Linux, BSD, OS/2, BeOS, etc, etc).

But this isn't gonna happen. MS must maintain control of such defacto standards because it helps drive one of their money makers. ie: MS Office. (This is why OOXML or docx exists...To counter ODF).

(7) Microsoft isn't completely "anti-Linux".

There ARE pockets within the company that gladly accept Linux and opensource. The problem is, you have folks like Steve Ballmer that say this and that about it (ie: Its a cancer)...While you have others like those in the MS Linux Lab that won't have a problem with it.

This is why you get a mixed messaged from Microsoft. One minute they say they're working on "interoperability", next minute, Linux is violating MS patents!

But its clear that the concept of opensource has clearly affected Microsoft. Whether they like it or not, it is inevitable.

Take a look how MS has reacted...

(a) Microsoft Shared Source Initiative
=> http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/de...
(Its like open-source...But not quite).

(b) MS Research Facility to study Open-Source solutions.
=> http://port25.technet.com/
(To fight and kill your enemy, you must understand and study him...This facility contains A LOT of systems loaded up with just about every Linux distro known to man).

(c) CodePlex
=> http://www.codeplex.com/
(Microsoft's attempt to copy SourceForge.net)

(8) Finally, this Dell deal is aimed at business markets. That is, business desktop and server solutions from Novell, using SLED and SLES. Ubuntu is still being used for Dell's consumer desktop systems.

Who's the # 2 OS?

By rsmech on 5/8/2007 11:30:18 AM , Rating: 2

It seems like apple is making some wave as far as consumer recognition. They were never much of a threat to Microsoft. But now that the hardware between the 2 are coming closer together the OS's may very well compete head to head on any machine in the near future. With this said Microsoft has no control or influence over apple. This could lead to some future competition that Microsoft hasn't seen before. Imagine if you could upgrade your current windows to the next generation of Mac than to Windows again or whatever sequence you wanted whenever. Consumer choice that has never been possible in the OS market.(the other choices out now aren't as user friendly or have the tech support of apple or windows and forums don't count. apple & windows have forums also.)

That all being said Microsoft would be better off taking a number 3 OS & partnering up so they have direct involvement in their future competition. If they can sell Linux over Mac OS it's better for them. But not better for us. Imagine an Microsoft having direct, viable, & competent competition. It would be like Intel & AMD which is great for the consumer.

I'm certainly not an apple fanboy & may even be considered anti-apple. But Linux & Microsoft is worse for the consumer than Apple OS vs Microsoft OS. Imagine an OS made for the consumer because of competition, no DRM or any other corporate driven garbage. It wouldn't sell as easily if the competition didn't support it. I could go on and on but like I said imagine apple & windows competing like Intel & AMD.