Microsoft

A collection of 200 posts

Linux

Novell Linux Certificates

One of the parts of the Novell/Microsoft deal that hasn't been getting much press is the 70,000 SLES certificates that Microsoft purchased for distribution.  I was a bit surprised to see that 16,000 of them have already been doled out.  Three major companies have even

Linux

Novell: Hubert Mantel Returns, Jeremy Allison Resigns

Quite a bit going on at Novell over the last couple days.  We have Hubert Mantel returning and Jeremy Allison resigning.  For those that don't remember, Hubert is one of the Suse founders and had resigned from Novell a little over a year ago, saying: ""Too

Linux

All Expenses Paid Press Junket from Microsoft... to Rob Limo

It looks like Microsoft decided to send Rob Limo on an all expenses paid press junket to Redmond.  As you may have guessed, many of his hard hitting questions weren't answered, but there are a couple interesting observations in there and he did get a free Zune for

Main Page

Microsoft wins industry standard status for Office

Looks like ECMA International has approved Office Open XML as an official industry standard.  From the article: ECMA International, a group of makers of both hardware and software based in Geneva that includes Microsoft, designated the Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats of Microsoft's Office Open XML as official

Linux

It Takes a Monopoly

In a post entitled "For reasons that have little to do with the product, itself, Windows Vista simply can't lose", Robert X. Cringely points out why Vista will be a winner.  From the article: Windows Vista is finally here, a shadow of what it was once

Linux

Stallman Comments on Legality of Microsoft Novell Patent Agreement

As promised, here's an update on the official word regarding the FSF's opinion on the legality of the patent portion of the recent Microsoft Novell deal. However, there's another way of using software patents to threaten the users which we have just seen an

Linux

How Microsoft & Massachusetts played hardball over open standards

A great article based on over 300 emails obtained under the Massachusetts Public Records Law (which looks like a state variety of the Federal Freedom of Information Act).  The article contains a ton of information and if this is a topic that you're interested in (NOTE: it should

Linux

Novell Boosts OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office Interoperability

The previous post covered an article about Open Standards that ended with the following: When Gutierrez announced his resignation as Massachusetts CIO in early October, he cited the legislature’s failure to pass a bond bill that included funding for key IT projects. Since the bill also would have funded

Linux

Q&A: Novell CEO gives behind-the-scenes account of deal with Microsoft

In a previous post I wondered what was on the mind of the execs at Novell after the recent Microsoft agreement.  Computerworld has just posted a Q&A with CEO Ron Hovsepian.  From the article: How did the agreement with Microsoft come to pass? Who approached whom, and when?

Linux

Credit Suisse Writes Off Novell

A quick follow up on Novell.  While I expected them to take a bit of punishment from the Open Source community for the recent patent deal some previous coverage, I didn't expect them to take any punishment from Wall Street.  If anything, I expected them to get rewarded

Linux

The French Say Au Revoir to Microsoft Software

The article title is a bit dramatic, but it looks like the French parliament is considering moving to Linux on both the desktop and server.  From the article: Starting in June of next year, French deputies will use desktops and servers running Linux, Mozilla's Firefox Web browser, and

Linux

Novell Dumps the Hula Project

Conspiracy theorists of the Open Source community unite; Novell has just dropped official support for Hula shortly after announcing their agreement with Microsoft.  For those unfamiliar with Hula, here's a snippet from the original press release just over 18 months ago: BOSTON (LinuxWorld Conference& Expo 2005) — Feb.

Linux

How many Microsofties does it take to implement the Off menu?

Sparked by a post Joel recently made, Moishe Lettvin (a former Microsoftie now Googler) gives us a little insight into Windows development.  From the post: So that nets us a conservative estimate of 24 people involved in this feature. Also each team of 8 was separated by 6 layers of

Linux

Linux users to Microsoft: What 'balance sheet liability'?

Continued coverage of a story I've been watching closely.  Computerworld has an article the covers the reactions of a couple CIO's to the recent Microsoft-Novell agreement.  From the article: "I do not believe that my company has an "undisclosed balance sheet liability," Russ

Linux

Open Letter to the Community from Novell

Novell has released an Open Letter to the Community.  From the letter: Our interest in signing this agreement was to secure interoperability and joint sales agreements, but Microsoft asked that we cooperate on patents as well, and so a patent cooperation agreement was included as a part of the deal.

Linux

Microsoft CEO says Linux "uses our intellectual property"

That didn't take too long, did it.  From the article: In comments confirming the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday declared his belief that the Linux operating system infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property. In a question-and-answer session after his keynote speech at

Linux

Samba Team Asks Novell to Reconsider

More on a story I have been closely watching, it looks like the Samba team has officially requested that Novell reconsider the recent patent agreement they made with Microsoft.  From the Samba site: The Samba Team disapproves strongly of the actions taken by Novell on November 2nd. One of the

Linux

Is Microsoft Going to Start a Linux War?

On the topic of misunderstanding the GPL, we have this doozy.  From the article: Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject

Linux

Novell and Microsoft Collaborate III

Some additional information has been released since my last post on this topic, in the form of an 8-K filing from Novell.  From the filing: On November 2, 2006, Novell, Inc. ("Novell") and Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") announced that they had entered into a Business Collaboration Agreement,

Linux

Red Hat Response to Oracle and Microsoft/Novell Moves

Here's a response from Red Hat on the recent upheaval in the Linux world.  My take?  Half really good points, half disingenuous and/or ridiculous. First, the good points. Last time I looked, we were still in ring, and we are still standing. The big mistakes companies and

Linux

Novell and Microsoft Collaborate II

The dust still hasn't settled, but this is a story everyone is keeping a close eye on.  A few quick updates on my original posting.  First, as you may have guessed, the general community reaction has been mostly negative.  I'd guess that's a natural

Linux

Responses from around the Linux Community

Here are some responses from around the Linux community on the recent Novell deal with Microsoft. Eben Moglen thinks the deal may actually violate the GPL: It's possible that Thursday's deal between Microsoft and Novell could conflict with a provision in the General Public License (GPL)

Linux

Novell and Microsoft Collaborate

As if the recent Oracle Red Hat talk wasn't interesting enough, Novell today announced that they will be collaborating with Microsoft.  While some people seem to think this may have been a reaction to the Oracle announcement, I can't see any way this was thrown together

Linux

Why Has Microsoft Abandoned the Power User?

That's the questions posed by Preston Gralla in this editorial.  From the post: The upcoming final releases of Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7 make one thing exceedingly clear: Microsoft has abandoned the power user, allowing fewer and fewer customizations and tweaks. By doing this, they’re leaving

Linux

IE7 Final Released

About 18 months after it was announced, IE7 is now available for download.  It looks like it will be rolled out via automatic update "real soon now".  I wasn't going to blog about this, but changed my mind for a couple reasons.  First, it impacts LQ.