Novell's Link to the Microsoft TCO Linux Message

March 20, 2007 Leave a comment

Stephen illustrates (via this post) something that I’ve tried to put into words several times on my blog. His picture does a really good job of getting the idea across though. From the post:

Red Hat began messaging at least a year ago around the use of Red Hat linux in value creation. Here’s how the logic flows from a Michael Tiemann presentation at the 2006 Red Hat Summit:

* Companies spend on average 4-8% of income on IT (Financial companies 8-12%)
* So regardless of how you carve up the cost savings, you’re messing around with something that will NOT move the stock price anytime soon.
* IT focusing on the value creation side of the bar can help by delivering better customer service (and retention), market growth, competitive advantage.

It’s a difficult realization for some, but “being cheap” is not what makes Open Source great. Yes, the cost proposition is often compelling… but it’s the value proposition that I usually find remarkable. This sort of reminds me, although it’s a different situation, of some of the Oracle messaging around their Linux release. The major push seemed to be around cost savings. They didn’t see the irony of a company selling 6-8 figure database solutions offering 3 digit saving on an OS. An additional 1% additional off the DB would always be more. Where’s the value in that?

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source

Ian Murdock is Joining Sun

March 19, 2007 Leave a comment

This is big news. Ian Murdock is leaving the Linux Foundation and joining Sun. If you’re an OpenSolaris fan this has to be exciting, but it also means that Linux may actually get a fair shake inside Sun. Linux and Sun have had an odd history, with the company going back and forth between hot and cold multiple times. Looking at the latest OpenSolaris at SCALE this year, I have to admit I was impressed. Dtrace, zones, ZFS – there is some real innovation there. I still think Linux should be part of the overall Sun vision though, and OpenSolaris and Linux should be able to coexist. Ian makes the statement that Linux needs to play a clearer role in the platform strategy, so we’ll see what happens. Interesting times. Kudos to Sun for being able to pick up an absolutely top notch person and congratulations to Ian on the new job.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Open Source, Sun

Pre-installing Linux

March 16, 2007 Leave a comment

Mark recently posted about OEM preinstalled Linux. This is a topic I’ve covered on my blog multiple times. The razor thin margins are definitely a big part of the equation, especially when coupled with Microsoft co-marketing dollars. The current OEM market is in a precarious position. Most of their margins are made up of either those Microsoft dollars or money that comes from preinstalled software. Unfortunately, as a recent Dell poll shows, those are precisely the things a lot of people don’t want. So what’s an OEM to do? Supporting Linux from their perspective isn’t as easy as some seem to think it is. What distro(s) do you chose and what level of support do you offer? I think the best toe dip option is going to come from the mix of a “NO OS” option on every model coupled with the option of getting a separate Linux disk. Each model that has a hardware config that will 100% work with open drivers should be marked as such. This initial step would be a huge one, but we’re not there yet. The next step would be the OEM picking a distribution or two (maybe one commercial and one community) that it feels comfortable with and offering those as legitimate preloaded options. That’s when Linux will have arrived in the mainstream. I think we can get there, but it’s not going to be a quick or easy path. Nothing worthwhile ever is though.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Open Source, Ubuntu

Yes, sometimes Linux costs more than Windows

March 16, 2007 2 Comments

While poorly timed for Novell, I’d agree with this post. Sometimes Linux may indeed cost more than Windows. Putting aside that everything isn’t about cost, look at the parameters involved here:

f you look at the details of the announcement you’ll see that the reason why HSBC had better management costs for Windows was because it had taken a proactive Active Directory-led approach to managing Windows, whereas a variety of Linux systems had been deployed an a largely ad hoc, application-led basis.

Having spoken to Matthew O’Neill, group head of distributed systems for HSBC global IT operations, we published the following:

“’A couple of years ago we commenced the global deployment of Active Directory and in doing that project we managed to demise a range of infrastructure servers,’ he added, noting that the end result was that it cost less to manage Windows servers than it did to manage Linux servers.

One of the reasons for that is that the company had taken an ad hoc approach to Linux deployment. ‘In the early stages of deployment we did tend to set the build to the specific application, rather than look at it as a commoditized server,’ O’Neill said.”

In this context – combined with the abundance of Windows skills compared to Linux – it is fairly obvious that Windows would end up being cheaper to manage per instance than Linux.

Loosely translated, that means a shop with a lot of Windows experience who is utilizing managed deployment is able to more effectively manage Windows than Linux, which they rolled out ad hoc and are new to. That shouldn’t be a real surprise and is obviously not and apples to apples comparison. However, we need to get past this cost issue. The main advantage of Open Source, especially in the Enterprise, is not being gratis.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source

Follow a journey through the migration process to Open Source

March 16, 2007 Leave a comment

Mercian Labels Ltd is migrating to Open Source. Alone, that’s not huge news – a ton of companies from SMB’s to Enterprises are doing the same. What’s different here is that they are blogging the entire process. This should give us a near real-time look at the trials and tribulations of an SMB Open Source migration as it happens. Should be interested.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Open Source

If You're Going To Steal Software, Steal From Us: Microsoft Exec

March 15, 2007 1 Comment

From The article:

If you’re going to be a software counterfeiter, then please copy and illegally use Microsoft products.

The above plea isn’t from a posting on a hacker forum. Rather, it’s how Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes feels about software counterfeiters. “If they’re going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else,” Raikes said.

But Raikes, speaking last week at the Morgan Stanley Technology conference in San Francisco, said a certain amount of software piracy actually helps Microsoft because it can lead to purchases by individuals who otherwise might never have been exposed to the company’s products.

“We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products,” Raikes said. “What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software.”

That sounds suspiciously like the business model of many Open Source companies, doesn’t it? It’s just that we don’t call it piracy. Companies like MySQL thrive on having absolutely massive install bases. They have these millions of installs precisely because of the gratis and libre nature of their product. It’s then their responsibility to offer enough value to incent some amount of those downloaders to purchase products or services from the company. For some companies it’s support, for others it’s certification and official binaries. It could also be the ability to use the product in a commercial environment, extra features or myriad other things. The point is, there’s additional value for the consumer. The funny thing is, in its early days (say <= Windows 3.1) Microsoft seemed to almost embrace this. Seems things may have come full circle.

–jeremy

Filed under Microsoft, Open Source

Red Hat Launches Open-Source Exchange

March 14, 2007 Leave a comment

The software company is unveiling an online marketplace for Open Source developers—where Red Hat can sell support, and links to its own products. From the article:

Red Hat signaled a strategic shift on Mar. 14 when it announced an initiative called the Red Hat Exchange (rhx), an online marketplace where it will sell products from more than a dozen open-source companies including Mysql, Sugarcrm, and Al Fresco Software. The exchange could make a wide range of software attractive to businesses large and small that have been put off by the challenges of buying from lesser-known suppliers and piecing it all together.

When rhx goes live in the second quarter, Red Hat will guarantee that the other companies’ products work well with its own, and the company will provide tech support for all of them. The marketplace will be much more than just an online product catalog. It’s designed to function as a community where users of open-source software can read reviews, rate the products, and compare notes.

Open-source software is made collaboratively by developers from around the world and is available for anybody to use, free of charge. Red Hat and others sell commercial versions that include extra software, documentation, and support. Says Red Hat chief executive Matthew J. Szulik, “Rhx gives us the opportunity to be the flag bearer for open-source software.”

Partners at launch will include Alfresco, Jaspersoft, MySQL and SugarCRM. The article is light on details, such as what level of support is offered by Red Hat before you go upstream and what kind of revenue share is involved. One thing is clear to me though; this is good for Open Source. It’s the beginning of a bona fide commercial Open Source ecosystem, the likes of which we’ve not yet seen. The importance of an ecosystem is one thing that Microsoft used to really get. It’s one of the things that has made them as strong as they are. But as their stock has slumped in recent years, they’ve begun to canabilize both ISV’s and partners. That makes now a golden opportunity for something like this. The Exchange should launch next quarter and is something I’ll definitely keep an eye on.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Microsoft, Open Source, Red Hat

Open Source Business Models: A Wall Street Look at a Wild 2006 and the Prospects for Even More Fun in 2007

March 12, 2007 Leave a comment

Stephen Walli points to a presentation from EclipseCon by Brent Williams entitled: “Open Source Business Models: A Wall Street Look at a Wild 2006 and the Prospects for Even More Fun in 2007”.  The presentation is fairly long at 48 slides, but contains some very good information.  You might not agree with all the specific details presented in the slide, but the end result comes together nicely.  His interface standard vs implementation standard explanation using a Lamborghini Murcielago vs. Hyundai Excel drives home the point nicely.  He also covers commoditization issues and the recent Oracle Linux foray, among others items, quite well.  Overall the presentation is definitely worth the read.  I wish I’d have been at EclipseCon to see it myself.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Open Source, Oracle, Red Hat

Welcome to the New Blog

March 12, 2007 Leave a comment

I’ve updated my blog to WordPress. It’s been a long time coming, but I finally put aside the time to do it last night. Please let me know ASAP if you notice any problems. I’m still getting some things configured, but so far so good. Using WordPress should give me a lot more flexibility than I had before, and not having my blog on an Open Source platform always bothered me. Once things stabilize, I’ll be adding some additional bells and whistles. One huge problem I’ve run into is that the old permalinks are currently broken. This is very bad. The problem is that Blogware doesn’t export the needed information to migrate this information. I’ve sent them an email to see if they can do it for me manually. In the meantime I have 302’d everything I could. When going to an old article, you’ll get redirected to a list of posts from that day. If Blogware is able to send me the information I want, I’ll update the system to 301 you to the correct post. I really apologize for the breakage and hope it will be cleaned up soon. The feed entry you have should be transparently updated already. The only other issue I see is that the export didn’t respect line breaks in a sane way, so some posts are ugly. I’ll manually clean up at least the posts on the home page. Let me know how things are operating from your end. Thanks ;)

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, LinuxQuestions.org, Open Source

If you can't beat them, fine them II

March 9, 2007 Leave a comment

There's a little debate going back and forth about the topic I posted about here. For my part, I have no issue with most of what the EU has been able to accomplish with respect to Microsoft abusing its monopoly position. In fact, I give them kudos for stepping up and taking a stand where the DOJ failed to. What scares me is the possibility of a Government being able to assign a value to what it perceives as innovation (or lack thereof). Even if they are correct in this particular case, it just seems like a precarious precedent.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

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