Novell layoff rumors swirled this week, but analysts were quick to dismiss any doomsday scenarios involving the SuSE Linux operating system. Current users of SuSE should not panic even if the 20% workforce cuts cited in recent news reports come to fruition, said Charles King, principal analyst for Pundit-IT Research, Hayward, California.
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Member since:Novell’s iFolder client uses C# if I remember correct and there are some others, that’s what I meant when saying >>future<< tools. Probably you are right and their strategy is shit, considering where they were and where they are they demonstrated skill in pissing market shares away.
But they have Suse, a good distro even after they got their hands on it, and they have Ximian still working on the only significant .NET compatible tool chain, and they just can’t compete on any other level. You want Java, you go with Sun or even RedHat, but Novell? You want PHP, I don’t think anybody even gives a damn about what distro that runs on, might even be Slakware as far as the user is concerned. Rails, Zope anything else? There is nothing out there for them except Java, that’s hopeless for them, and .NET. With Mono they have at least the potential for getting their foot into the door for a marked guarantied to exist for a while even if only do to Microsoft pumping money into it. There is no other server Linux distro out there with a Mono based stack. If they are smart they start working on compatibility to everything Microsoft allows them and come up with damn good alternatives for everything else. Maybe even with good and proprietary migration tools.
Member since:Actually, Novell/Suse have IBM.. IBM is the absolute key to any future for Suse. IBM has no Linux distribution of it's own and had stated many times that it does not wish to get into that business. Suse is as close as it gets to being IBM's Linux distribution. The two companies work very closely together and many have speculated that if it ever came to the point that Novell might go under, IBM would pick up Suse.
Member since:2005-07-06
Novell’s iFolder client uses C# if I remember correct and there are some others
iFolder was originally written in Java, but some technology wanker thought it would be a great idea to re-write it with Mono.
that’s what I meant when saying >>future<< tools.
I wouldn't exactly call it a future tool.
You want Java, you go with Sun or even RedHat, but Novell?
Yes. JBoss is the web app server in SLES, and Novell write all, or most, of their internal stuff with Java.
With Mono they have at least the potential for getting their foot into the door for a marked guarantied to exist for a while even if only do to Microsoft pumping money into it.
There is no market for .Net on the server-side, especially on non-Windows servers.
If they are smart they start working on compatibility to everything Microsoft allows them and come up with damn good alternatives for everything else.
The complete folly of trying to catch up with Microsoft's compatibility is another subject entirely.
Member since:
2005-07-06
They are also working on nice little >>future<< tools based on Mono (another reason to hold them) the people working on them are safe too.
As any sort of manager, the the pointless, low-level, technology-wanking projects and positions like Mono would be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
They need Ximian to build their nextgen tools to compete with Microsoft on their own turf. And thy need people to build the value added Server distro based on Suse and Mono.
Errrr, no. Mono has absolutely zero chance of being profitable as an investment for Novell, and there are absolutely no next generation tools (whatever that means) for Mono whatsoever. It might be interesting for a company like Mainsoft because they're actually a tools company, but not even they make money from it. Mainsoft's main income is Microsoft .Net and J2EE integration. Mono is a lame duck project that barely works along with many other things Novell need to get rid of, like Netware and Groupwise. However, at least Netware and Groupwise are bringing in existing income, albeit declining.
Jack Messman has no intelligence for that sort of thing though. Without the right person at the top they will fail.