Monthly Archives: August 2008

Save us from middle management and teenagers!

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That had to happen, and it had to be announced. Novell and Microsoft have basically extended their collaboration, although the point of such a partnership seems unclear to both of them if you read the fine print. On the one hand, Microsoft bought yet another share of Novell, this time for 100 millions (ah, those services contractors always end up lowering their fees) while Novell gets another cash infusion and keeps its marketing differentiator.

 

Matt Asay wrote a few days ago that Microsoft is essentially playing a dangerous game, one that could very well end up cannibalizing its own market by trying to pin Novell as a different and compelling Linux vendor. It is a subtle and interesting opinion, but I don’t think it actually flies.

 

Rather, I think that while Matt analyses the nature of the deal between Microsoft and Novell in a very compelling way, his prediction about Novell eventually winning the game in the end because of its partnership with Microsoft misses the point. What Matt expresses, I believe, is the point of view that many share inside Novell’s middle management circles. Which does not mean it’s bogus or irrelevant: It merely ignores another, central factor: Novell has actually been bought for good, and it’s just a vassal of a private monopoly. What is thought inside these middle management circles may not be what is being discussed elsewhere, higher up the food chain inside Novell.

 

One of the very sad aspects to this deal, and one that is often overlooked, is that Novell does not, did not, and will not need Microsoft’s partnership to succeed and thrive business-wise. Novell had and still has one of the most compelling value proposition without Microsoft out there. The problem is that Novell was and is in dire need of cash, and Microsoft was the one who was the most eager to bring a solution in this regard. Novell had a declining business line with its Netware products, and their Linux offerings were good, probably compelling, but they came in way too early. Those were the times of Jack Messman. Those were the times where SCO was patent-trolling half of the world. Those were times that saw the birth of Groklaw… But I digress. Novell still has one of the best offerings out there for Linux:

  • a great distribution for the enterprise and another, very popular one for the “community” (OpenSuse)

  • a certified, enterprise class Linux server platform that is distributed on the IBM mainframe offerings. Aside Red Hat, no other Linux vendor enjoys that position, although Canonical could join the fray.

  • management tools of all kinds, including security and authentification technologies

  • a very profitable, multiplatform groupware solution.

And last but not least, a shrinking(?) but still very nice customers’ portfolio. All this is not due to Microsoft. Nothing in the products and solutions mentioned above loses anything of its value. But here’s the catch: Most of these offerings generate revenue in a market where Linux enjoys a solid or rapidly growing share on the desktops, which is presently not the case. Novell is thus left out there finding growth and business opportunities. And just like in the tale, here comes Microsoft…

 

I don’t think enterprise customers want to switch to Linux in order to better stay with Microsoft. Some actually refuse such a deal, and there Novell loses pretty often. But what I also see is the buying process of some customers. Your job as a CIO/CFO/CLO (Chief Legal Officer) is to minimize the risks. And sometimes, you’re ready to do very ridiculous things to have no risk happening. So what does the Novell/Microsoft partnership amount to? In some -unfortunate- cases, it can be seen as a helpful insurance contract. Now, if I were the CEO in such a company, I would be having a serious conversation with my team about signing up for an insurance covering this kind of oddities. But fear is a powerful motivator, and many fall in its trap… especially corporate management.

Yet it could be worse: You could fall subjugated by Redmond, such as Patrick Durusau, the ODF editor. It’s sad to see such an expert turning upside down and seeing the invisible hand of IBM (ah, we hadn’t seen it since the eighties!) everywhere. Worse: According to Mr Durusau, Brazil, India, Venezuela, South Africa along with the countries who supported the appeals are nothing less than teenager; and whining, badly brought up teenagers at that. We shall thus take the advice of Mr Durusau: Be reasonable ! Submit! Resistance is futile! You don’t know what’s good for you! But does Microsoft know, Mr Durusau?

ISO approves the rejection of the vote on the relevance validity of some appeals…

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So I am just back from vacation during which I unfortunately learnt about the war between Georgia and Russia. That is a complete madness and should be settled down as fast as possible otherwise I fear we will have a regional contagion. And remember, the war in Tchechenia is not over either. Caucasus is getting hot again, and that’s not because of global warming. Let’s hope for better things ahead.

Meanwhile, and while I was on vacation as well, the ISO did not lose its time fiddling with gentrifying concepts such a transparence and fairness. Nay, the ISO did what it had to do when they are harassed by hordes of undeads, communists, alien slime and malignant hogs of all kinds: They shut off the doors, closed the gates… and obeyed the Mighty. Remember, die Partei hat immer Recht. And that’s why the ISO refused to validate the appeals of four national standards organisations any further. Notice that the ISO did not actually answer to these appeals. It made up a list of existing P-countries (but not all of them were listed and besides, results would have been more clearcut with the P- “shooting stars”countries, the ones who got their P status and withdrew from it just after the OOXML ballot) asked them to vote on the relevance of the appeals, thereby refusing to decide on the appeals themselves and -watch this- for fear that these appeals might actually get through, they came up with that rule of the two-thirds. The rule states that you need two thirds of the concerned countries that actually vote yes to two oddly-phrased questions (more details here) . I don’t know where this rule comes from, and there is not even any rationale in favour of such a rule. But who are we to question the holy sanctions of the ISO?

Citizens, companies of various sizes, NGOs, and when put together, a lot of people. But I guess that does not matter at this stage. It is after all not that bad when you think about the war in Caucasus. What could be worse, of course, is that ISO could actually be in charge of solving the crisis between Russia and Georgia. Imagine how they would present their activity:

“ The ISO has successfully decided in favour of the transfer of the sovereignty of Siberia to Microsoft while allowing not two, but ten regions of Georgia to gain their full independence, regardless of their intent to become independent. Religious matters will be transferred to the Vatican except for the enclave of Zugdidi in Western Georgia and Iekaterineburg in Russia who will officially adopt the Church of Satan as their sole religion. After having conferred with Australia and the Imaginary Sultanate of Yareembada on Second Life, ISO declares that no conflict of interest thereby exists, has existed or shall exist between the Russian Federation, Georgia, Australia and any existing, past or future micronation on SecondLife in the matters pertaining to peace-keeping, fruit-groping, large-dog-petting, cookie-eating and computing.”

So what shall be done? Has OOXML finally won its way through the ISO? It obviously did buy its way through the ISO leadership, but there are still other ways to show the world how outrageous this process has become. Now OOXML is still left where it is: noone has seen it, or rather, many (including me) have reported to have seen it, but few, if no one, can actually say for sure where it is, as it simply has never been implemented. Conflicting reports exist about file formats called OOXML that do not seem to conform to the ISO/IEC 29500 spec. But the spec itself is rarely seen, and even more rarely witnessed as an implemented standard. Of course, it does not carry any obligation to be implemented. It’s just an ISO standard…


Miscellanea before leaving on vacation

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  • I have not been blogging for a week now but as it turns out, I have been microblogging. I do have a Twitter account but I am now using my Identi.ca account much more regularly. Of course microblogging does not replace blogging. I guess it opens a new channel for different content that has a real amount of immediacy and spontaneity. Understand that it may include noise, buzz, and senseless chatter.
  • I have recently been working with a group of volunteers on an informal, behind the scenes project inside OpenOffice.org. It aims to define and deliver a concept document that could be used as something of a “roadmap framework” for future versions of OpenOffice.org. Check out here for more details. It started out with Kay Ramme designing his “ODF@www” mechanism and it will use this idea extensively.
  • Stay tuned as the votes for the splashscreen contest for OpenOffice.org are about to start! You will get to choose among several splashscreen proposals submitted by various members of the community.
  • The Ars Aperta web site will be undergoing a revamping on the inside. Some new pages will be added, content has already been a bit improved but most importantly, we’ll be rolling out the Ikaaro Content Management System and its wiki behind the scenes. If you wonder what kind of platform we were using before, well, we were using our very own custom and minimalistic platform (that amounted to little more than changing the web pages through the command line). We now feel we should put more content online and take full advantage of the fact that the Ars Aperta web site has been running on Caudium, a very fast, very reliable, written in C and Pike. In other words, that’s not your everyday Apache…

Meanwhile, I will be in vacation for a bit less than two weeks and I am ready to enjoy them. Thank you for reading this weblog and enjoy the rest of the month!