Microsoft made a minority investment on Monday in Unix/Linux management vendor Vintela on Monday. Neither Microsoft nor Lindon, City, Utah-based Vintela would comment on the size of the investment. But sources said the amount was under $10 million. Vintela has acted a key participant in Microsoft’s Unix/Linux interoperability strategy. Nonetheless, Vintela is an unlikely Microsoft partner. Update: I hope to interview someone from Vintela this week, and ask them about their relationship with SCO (other than having the same investor). If you have any other burning questions, please suggest them in the comments.
Vintela: Microsoft’s Secret Unix/Linux Weapon?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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If I were microsoft I would embrace linux and keep working on windows. Why fight apointless war of words that won’t make a difference in people’s perceptions when people could choose the more user friendly(true?), more supported(true?) and ‘so called cost-saving'(misleading?) superior(misleading?) OS like Windows?
Micrsoft might as well work their marketing and sales muscle rather than even bothering with tormenting the unix crowd, make more friends than you kill helps in the long run and thus microsoft has had to expand in other areas such as website networks, television(msnbc), xbox, etc. due to people leaving the company due to high prices. microsoft knows this and they have plans for the short term and long term. They aren’t dumb but trashing open source is also very dumb of them. they should’ve embraced it
Hi,
Hmmm, is MS just trying to sideline Unix with this one (“federate across platforms”, “manage Unix objects with Active Directory”), or are they just trying to acquire some sort of IP?
Weird. There also appears to be a lack of info on Vintela – no annual reports (not publicly listed, right?), couple of mentions of Wedgetail and Sco group, and that’s about it.
bye,
victor
“In late July, Vintela released a new product, Vintela Management Extensions (VMX). VMS is a plug-in for Microsoft’s Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 that allows SMS to manage Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Mac OS X and various Linux systems. Vintela “jointly engineered” VMX with Microsoft, according to Wilson.”
Perhaps they should have created tools to manage windows box’s from the *nix side of the house. It probably would have been more practical.
Yes, but then how could they lock you into the Windows platform after they stop supporting the Unix product?
“Why fight a pointless war of words”
Because every year they delay the inevitable they make billions of dollars. Windows pulls in about 8 billion dollars of profit (not income, profit) every year these days. That’s about 150 million dollars a week. That’s WITH Linux being in the advanced state it’s in.
If they can delay Linux’s adoption for a few weeks that’s hundreds of millions of dollars profit for them. It’s easy for numbers like that to motivate a company to action. To bad it seems to be motivating their marketing department instead of their engineering department.
You might say that, but then again, Windows XP and the .Net platform is certainly a lot better than anything they’ve doen in the past. Although with the money and resources they have, a lot more could be done.
This place smells, this place smells. Is SCO any where nearby? I won’t doubt it.
Oh now I remember, just search google for “SCO Vintella” and you’ll get the gist.
[tin-foil]
I guess SCO is running out of pocket money and daddy is trying to provide some without being noticed.
You can’t blame people for being skeptical of MS and Canopy.
Check this out.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040119091303185
I recently worked on a project where Microsoft proposed two Vintela products. It was a genuine proposal, backed by contact with Vintela and working demonstrations. Microsoft set up a complete, interoperable authentication and management environment. The company involved ended up rejecting a Linux option, because of collaboration and desktop application issues, and took a complete MS management stack. It wasn’t because of any fault with Vintela.
Congrats,smart buy.
Guess who owns Vintella? Yup, Canopy. Guess who else Canopy owns? Yup, SCO (ScumCriminalsOckers). See, right now, SCO is getting it’s bum kicked to kingdom come by IBM and friends. And everyone is up to Microsofts little sponsoring game with SCO. So, Microsoft now will indirectly sponsor SCO by sponsoring Vintella, which funnels the monies back to Canopy, which then redirects the money back to SCO. Great eh? And by doing this, Microsoft hopes to take away the prying eyes of the DOJ (not that they’re *really* doing anything anyways).
See, Microsoft has a problem. It doesn’t innovate. It steals. It lies. In creates a monopoly. It buys others out (that have great ideas). It uses it’s hardware monopoly to force Microsoft Windows down everyones throats. Open source innovates. It builds, it creates. It works. It’s reliable and secure. And no one single company owns it. How do you beat this? Well, Microsoft thinks that integrating key Unix features and abilities into its products will give them a leverage. Sorry guys – you guessed wrong. Dear Billie ‘boy’ Gates – understand this – we choose open source, we choose Linux, we choose the GPL because we have freedom. Oh and a lot of us don’t like financially supporting a known convicted monopolist.
Dave W Pastern
Imagine is Microsoft decided to Devote the resources and develop a disto…..
Hi,
Ummm, dude, could we be a tad less vitriolic here? Your “Microsoft is a stealing, lying, evil corporation” is just the sort of thing that people associate with frothing OSS zealots – I’m sure we can find valid, logical and objective arguments for why OSS is a superior mindset – not just that Microsoft happens to do what every other capitalist corporation does (and that includes IBM, Novell, Oracle, Sun etc – why OSS people seem to love IBM and hate Sun is beyond me, although that’s another topic).
Also, your “Microsoft doesn’t innovate, opensource does” doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.
Companies like Sun, which invests hundreds of millions in R and D, SGI, and DEC (may it rest in peace) are the ones who *innovate*.
I’m sorry, but I really don’t think the OSS movement can take the moral high ground here. Whilst I don’t think Ballmer is right (far from it), he may haven a point when he talks about Open Source taking ideas and concepts from proprietary software. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that – it’s an implementation after all, not a concept, but you can’t then go on to say that OSS programmers are somehow coding geniuses who come up with all the good ideas which MS then rips off. I mean, take Evolution 1.x for example – deja vu Outlook, anybody? And the 2.x branch just looks like Groupware, which is even worse (see review of NLD for details).
bye,
victor
“I’m sure we can find valid, logical and objective arguments for why OSS is a superior mindset – not just that Microsoft”
It not EVERY corporation think and act illegal as a rule. Some more, some less.
“happens to do what every other capitalist corporation does (and that includes IBM, Novell, Oracle, Sun etc -”
They are into OSS, not MS. Well MS HAVE some shots, as we can see, but that doesn’t necessarily count. Remember MS are criminals, no doubt, in many cases worse than your average neighbourhood thug.
“why OSS people seem to love IBM and hate Sun is beyond me, although that’s another topic). ”
Seems you have to get yourself more information.
It seems like Microsoft have finally realised they’re better off to have some useful role for their products in a mostly Unix shop. It’s conceivable that a Windows based management console might be a friendlier option than most other directory systems, even without the more compelling reasons for those who already have a network based around Active Directory.
Anything that makes it easier for Windows and Linux to interact actually helps both I think. It reminds me of the saying ‘a rising tide raises all boats’ I think that applies here.
Remember MS are criminals, no doubt, in many cases worse than your average neighbourhood thug.
Only in the demented minds of fanboys.
“Imagine is Microsoft decided to Devote the resources and develop a disto…..”
I’ll take a wild ass’ed guess and say they most certainly have. Further more they likely have a running disto with Active Directory firmly anchored to it.
If you consider the whole picture it would only make sense they would do so. Somewhat likely a they have a rather mature product tucked away somewhere in Redmond.
Don’t think for a second MS is going to allow all this shit to collapse in front of them. It’s not going to be quite that easy.
“Only in the demented minds of fanboys.”
How is that? MS pay fines all the time, just recently to the European Union. They also paid out Novell to shut up, and it wasn’t the type of amount you pay someone for keeping secret that you stole some matches.
Criminals in penguin-suits are also indeed criminals, even though that’s often not the common view. According to the fines they usually pay, they should be worse than your neighbourhood thug.
I feel this is a sober view. MS is a buisness organisation with no moral. You CAN also define this as mafia.
Microsoft made a minority investment on Monday in Unix/Linux management vendor Vintela on Monday. Neither Microsoft nor Lindon, City, Utah-based Vintela would comment on the size of the investment. But sources said the amount was under $10 million. Vintela has acted a key participant in Microsoft’s Unix/Linux interoperability strategy. Nonetheless, Vintela is an unlikely Microsoft partner.
>
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Do you belive in doing the simplest research on on anything you post?
As others have already pointed out Vintela is owned by Canopy who owns SCO. You’ve heard of SCO haven’t you?
So much for your comment about Vintela being an unlikely Microsoft partner.
Sun, SCO, MS, Novell, IBM, Redhat, Others, as much as most of us would like to think there is a huge rivalry between all this companies I don’t believe thats truly reality.
In many ways they are all part of the same pond, most are contractually bound to one another is a hundred different ways. Most license bits and pieces from one another, share code, and have agreements none of us are in the slightest privy to… It’s one big ugly mess.
Is this another SCO in the works or is Microsoft coming around?
“/dev/null” is exactly right. This is nothing but msft funnelling more money to scox in order to fund scox’s FUD campaign against linux.
Scox’s lawsuits, and claims are 100% without merrit. As is evidenced by the fact that after nearly two years, and two court orders scox has yet to produce a shread of evidence.
The entire scox-scam is nothing but msft abusing the USA legal system to FUD linux.
Ventall was once SCO. It is a Canopy company spun-off from SCO.
Remember MS are criminals, no doubt, in many cases worse than your average neighbourhood thug.
Rrriiigghhhttt. My memory is a bit rusty, but I really can’t recall the part where Microsoft sent out standover men to force people to buy Windows. Certainly, I can recall a hell of a lot more examples of assault and theft than people being forced to buy Windows.
Completely normal and reasonable business decisions – that just happen to be illegal because of the timing – is worse than assault, burglary and rape. Crikey, and I thought Americans had weirdly aligned moral compasses.
“See, Microsoft has a problem. It doesn’t innovate. It steals. It lies. In creates a monopoly. It buys others out (that have great ideas). It uses it’s hardware monopoly to force Microsoft Windows down everyones throats.”
Just assuming that they actually do all that… in what way do they have a problem?
Open source innovates.
List some.
Also, do try and concern yourself with the “Open Source Community” as well, and not government-funded and/or academic work.
“Rrriiigghhhttt. My memory is a bit rusty, but I really can’t recall the part where Microsoft sent out standover men to force people to buy Windows. Certainly, I can recall a hell of a lot more examples of assault and theft than people being forced to buy Windows.”
It’s not exactly that they are accused for, there are other crimes, you know…. Read the headlines for more info.
“Completely normal and reasonable business decisions – that just happen to be illegal because of the timing – is worse than assault, burglary and rape.”
MS has laywers to see how far they can stretch the boundaries of law, and to see if they lose or win by risking a fine. For them, and other companies, “it ain’t a crime if you don’t get caught”, and “it’s worth it if the income is larger than the fine”.
Same as for mafia, no morals, only buisiness, never personal.
Not ALL buisnisses are like this, but my IMPRESSIOn is that MS is specially bad, and known as “one of the most aggressive marketers ever”.
Msft gets caught in crimminal activities all the time. That is a verifiable fact. Msft is a convicted monopolist, msft blantantly stold stacker’s technology. Msft has paid out about $3 billion in the last year to settle cases of msft’s abusive business practises.
Funding a merritless lawsuit is absolutely illegal. Msft will probably get away with it, because msft can always say they needed scox’s cr@p. That arguement is not plausible in the real world, but it will probably keep msft execs out of prison. Still, the characterization of msft as a thuggish company is completely accurate.
JMHO.
“Open source innovates.
List some.
”
one word: Linux.
In case thats too Anti MS for you
how about another: Bittorrent
Microsoft Windows would have been no where if UNIX was not invented. So Before u point ur finger at any OSS. please show come respect to those who build UNIX.
Unix is not open source software though.
No dude, seems *you* need to “get yourself some more information” (engrish =) ). I’m sorry, but these are the sorts of statements that allow the public to write us off as nothing by foaming-at-the-mouth zealots, who refuse to see rhyme or reason.
MS are not ‘mafia’ – they have simply engaged in anti-competitive practices (ie they tried to kill their competition using means both fair and foul). Believe me, if every such case was prosecuted, there wouldn’t be a lot of companies left around.
And excuse me, since when was IBM a paragon of altruistic values – IBM doesn’t do anything for free. They do it for their own interests, perhaps you need another course in how the market price mechanism functions. Neither does Novell – IBM is probably as bad as MS, and Novell comes very close. Of course, it seems many here can’t seem to remember beyond about two years, but you should at least read some background on IBM and their patent practices.
On Sun, they are pretty much the 2nd single largest contributor to the OSS movement, right behind Berkeley. The contribute to projects as diverse as Apache, Perl, Tomcat, Gnome, the Gnome HIG, OpenOffice etc. (and yes, Sun employees still write the majority of OO code).
Bye,
Victor
“Unix is not open source software though.”
No, but BSD is, and BSD is just as “Unixy” as proprietary Unix is.
One big happy family of FUD.
You’re right David, this site is loosing it’s way. Unfortunately, as it has been a port of call for me for quite some time.
As for strong arming practices, well I decided to go back to Windows XP after some time with Linux because I wanted to get my Audio Workstation hapening and I like Cubase SX and rely heavily on VST instruments in my compositions. Until I can get a decent equiv to CubaseSX and VST’s running natively on Linux I ain’t moving. Running in emulation doesn’t cut it for me and there is no way in hell you can get an app like Cubase running under Wine. Funniest thing was getting a lockup on WindowsXP and having my Girl Friend state that she hadn’t seen that in quite a while. I just replied “welcome to Windows”.
MS through monopoly practices has forced a great lack of choice. Where once they were hailed in the industry for supporting commodity hardware they are resisting the same happening to themselves, now the OS industry is growing up and going the same way as hardware. Unfortunately it will still be a couple of years for the larger app houses to get some real cross platform apps happening but the seeds have been sown. This will be a hard fight and instances like this news item are just pieces of this fight comming together.
It’s not exactly that they are accused for, there are other crimes, you know…. Read the headlines for more info.
I do read the headlines. I can’t think of anything Microsoft has even been accused of – let alone found guilty – that’s even in the same ballpark as assault (and other crimes of the typical street thug).
MS has laywers to see how far they can stretch the boundaries of law, and to see if they lose or win by risking a fine. For them, and other companies, “it ain’t a crime if you don’t get caught”, and “it’s worth it if the income is larger than the fine”.
This applies to everyone – “it’s only wrong if you get caught” and “it’s worth the risk if the gain is greater than the cost” (heck, the latter is one fo the basic tenets of survival). I’d be quite willing to bet the percentage of people in the developed world over the age of twenty that haven’t broken _some_ law at some point in their lives wouldn’t even reach whole numbers.
<iLNot ALL buisnisses are like this, but my IMPRESSIOn is that MS is specially bad, and known as “one of the most aggressive marketers ever”.[/i]
Well, I’ve seen little evidence to suggest:
a) other business are not like this (IMHO a business – like a government – is inherently incapable of acting morally without dissolving)
b) Microsoft is any worse – by measure of their actions – than anyone else (certainly their actions have greater impact, however).
Msft gets caught in crimminal activities all the time. That is a verifiable fact.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve disagreed with both a law and a court. I doubt it would be the last either.
Msft is a convicted monopolist, msft blantantly stold stacker’s technology.
An excellent display of your ignorance. The Stac case was about software patents – not code, not “technology”. I think software patents are a bad idea – do you ?
I actually followed the Stac case as it happened – did you ? Heck, I was a Stac customer – were you ? I still have a 16 bit ISA Stac hardware compression card at home in an old 386SX.
The Stac case is an excellent example of why software patents are a bad idea.
Funding a merritless lawsuit is absolutely illegal.
Undoubtedly, but you’ll need more than slashdot conspiracy theories if you want to have them chraged and found guilty.
Still, the characterization of msft as a thuggish company is completely accurate.
No worse than any other company of any significant size.
It was the manufacturers that felt the weight of Microsofts strong arm.
They were FORCED to install Windows… They were FORCED to exclude other operating systems.
Really ? There were men with guns visiting offices and forcing companies to sign contracts ?
They weren’t “forced” to sell Windows by anything other than market demand.
But, I am not going to start that argument again.. Microsoft were already judged guilty in that court case…
Ah, if only life were so simple and the law was always right.
one word: Linux
What’s innovative about Linux ?
Where did Microsofts security baseline analyzer come from? microsoft didn’t write it. They lackt the technical know how.
You base this one ?
Where did dos come from? Yup, you guessed it, Microsloth didn’t write it. They bought it.
And ? Are you trying to imply Microsoft is the only company that buys technology rather than implementing it from scrach ?
Where did the idea for internet explorer come from? Yup, they bought yet another company and stole a nice idea.
Only in the anti-Microsoft zealots’ dictionary does “buying” equate to “stealing”.
Oh and then they decided to nicely steal lots of other nice ideas to suit themselves. By the time the law gets around to these mongrels they’ve made lots of nice money, and established a monopoly.
So then, by your standard, who doesn’t “steal” ideas ?
I’m hoping to interview someone from Vintela this week. I’m, of course, going to ask about their current relationship with SCO (aside from the fact that they have the same investor). If anyone else has questions that they would like posed, please post them here in the comments.
> Imagine is Microsoft decided to Devote the resources and develop a disto…..
Then they would have to allow it to be freely (as in beer and speach) downloadable.
Unless they base it in BSD, then they could do as Theo and ask for money for their work
Actually, M$ already did it. It’s called WINNT. except for the fat file system and GUI (plus some dos die hard programs), everything is taken from BSD.
“Actually, M$ already did it. It’s called WINNT. except for the fat file system and GUI (plus some dos die hard programs), everything is taken from BSD.”
I don’t usually feed trolls, but in this case I can’t resist.
What a load of BS, or should that be B$.
I hate Microsoft with as fiery a passion as the next Unix nerd, but I take exception to this claim. Firstly, Windows is based on a microkernel, BSD is not.
If you had any clue what you were talking about, you’d know that MS specifically avoided hiring former Unix kernel hackers to work on the NT kernel, and if anything, it’s more likely to be based on an unreleased OpenVMS variant than a Unix.
Even POSIX compliance was an afterthought for NT, when Microsoft realised they’d miss out on some contracts without it (particularly US govt).
There’s a lot of well-founded speculation that MS lifted the TCP/IP stack from BSD and ported it to NT, but it’s really stretching credibility to suggest that NT is based on BSD in any significant way.
In future, don’t insult BSD by suggesting that windows is based on it. Windows NT is based on a horribly entangled microkernel / driver / userland and has very little to do with Unix OS philosophies at all.
As for strong arming practices, well I decided to go back to Windows XP after some time with Linux because I wanted to get my Audio Workstation hapening and I like Cubase SX and rely heavily on VST instruments in my compositions. Until I can get a decent equiv to CubaseSX and VST’s running natively on Linux I ain’t moving
Hmm…have you tried latest versions of Ardour, Rosegarden, Jack and the LADSPA plugins? Or all other audio-apps? For me I didn’t have in mind to do any audiowork in Linux, but have done it ever since I found these well-working and affordable (hehe) apps. I would never be able to afford all that, a pro multitrack recorder, midi-sequencer and LOTS of plugins if it wasn’t free. (Donations are on their way)
Of course, if you need some SPECIAL plugins wich you’ve become addicted to (know how it is), it’s something else. But don’t expect to get your Reason-type thing working in Linux, through Jack every app is sort of like a component in a giant “Reason” setup.
I really would advice you to give it a go! If you already did, what was the drawbacks? Have you also tried the dssi-vst and the fst-vst VST-bridges?
PS: As for MS-Mafia I’m only using that word cause they are the same on the point that they don’t consider moral or ethics at all, they _only_ do buisiness. They don’t do drugs or killings, of course, but personally I believe they would if they could earn money and get away with it. I don’t think every company would, or are involved in criminality/immorality as of now, but if someone would MS would be among them. My personal opinion, it is not a claim.
Thanks/goodnight.
>
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve disagreed with both a law and a court. I doubt it would be the last either.
<
I have no doubt. As insanely pro-msft as you seem to be, I’m sure you applaud msft’s crimminal activities. But, your opinion doesn’t make msft’s activities any less crimminal.
>
Funding a merritless lawsuit is absolutely illegal.
Undoubtedly, but you’ll need more than slashdot conspiracy theories if you want to have them chraged and found guilty.
<
As I stated in my original post, msft will probably get away with it, just as msft gets away with most of their crimminal activities. But, remember this: illegal activities are illegal whether you get caught and convicted or not. Shoplifting is illegal, even if you don’t get caught. OJ is a murderer, even if he got away with it. Msft funding scox is certainly a good example of msft’s thuggish nature.
>
No worse than any other company of any significant size.
<
Gotta disagree. Msft is in a class by itself. Other major corporations may not be “lilly white” but msft has – if you will – lowered the bar.
How about live CDs? I don’t live CDs coming from msft.
I have no doubt. As insanely pro-msft as you seem to be, […]
Have you considered the possibility of a neutral opinion ?
[…] I’m sure you applaud msft’s crimminal activities.
No, I simply accept and understand that those activities were typical of the business world.
However, I find it rather unfair that said activities wouldn’t have been illegal if they weren’t a monopoly and couldn’t have _known_ they were a monopoly at the time (since that finding is an arbitrary legal finding). But that’s just my philosophical differences with how monopolies are defined under US law (I suppose I should make it clear that I *do* believe harmful monopolistic behaviour should be curtailed).
I also disagree with the finding that they were a monopoly – there has always been at least one and often two or three perfectly viable options to Microsoft products. Indeed, I was an OS/2 user myself for many years.
But, your opinion doesn’t make msft’s activities any less crimminal.
I agree. Your assertion that OJ was innocent, below, doesn’t change the result of his murder trial, either.
As I stated in my original post, msft will probably get away with it, just as msft gets away with most of their crimminal activities.
First you need some evidence other than slashdot conspiracy theories that’s what they’re doing.
Gotta disagree. Msft is in a class by itself. Other major corporations may not be “lilly white” but msft has – if you will – lowered the bar.
Any examples in particular you feel are especially worse than other corporate behaviour in the industry ?