The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is due to make a special announcement later today regarding a partnership with Novell.
"Under the pact, which isn't final, Microsoft will offer sales support of Suse Linux, a version of the operating system sold by Novell. The two companies have also agreed to develop technologies to make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft's Windows on their computers. The two companies are expected to announce details of their plan today at a press conference in San Francisco.
In addition, Microsoft won't assert rights over patents over software technology that may be incorporated into Suse Linux, the people said. Businesses that use Linux have long worried that Microsoft would one day file patent infringement suits against sellers of the rival software.
The pact marks an unusual level of cooperation between two longtime rivals. Microsoft has been battling all versions of Linux, but has faced pressure to assure that customers can run both Windows and Linux without problems. "
Microsoft has issued a media alert confirming that CEO Steve Ballmer will make an announcement today.
View: Media Alert: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Deliver Industry Announcement Today
"Under the pact, which isn't final, Microsoft will offer sales support of Suse Linux, a version of the operating system sold by Novell. The two companies have also agreed to develop technologies to make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft's Windows on their computers. The two companies are expected to announce details of their plan today at a press conference in San Francisco.
In addition, Microsoft won't assert rights over patents over software technology that may be incorporated into Suse Linux, the people said. Businesses that use Linux have long worried that Microsoft would one day file patent infringement suits against sellers of the rival software.
The pact marks an unusual level of cooperation between two longtime rivals. Microsoft has been battling all versions of Linux, but has faced pressure to assure that customers can run both Windows and Linux without problems. "
Microsoft has issued a media alert confirming that CEO Steve Ballmer will make an announcement today.
View: Media Alert: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Deliver Industry Announcement Today
If they aren't trying to continue their reign of terror, then this is really good news.
1) They see Novell as a has-been and non-threat. Their motive is to score PR points for pretending to collaborate with a Linux vendor, while actually doing little-to-nothing.
2) They are serious and picked Novell because they realized they could dominate and run-over them, in other words set the agenda and pick all the fruits. They might actually intent to improve Windows/Linux interoperability in server environments (among other things), but I highly doubt we'll ever see a MS Linux distro.
The day that MS has to distribute Linux, along with ported apps, is the same day MS goes away (out of biz). If it ever gets to that point, MS is in trouble beyond repair and Linux certainly won't save them. Such a "day" is not within feasible reality at this point.
1) They see Novell as a has-been and non-threat. Their motive is to score PR points for pretending to collaborate with a Linux vendor, while actually doing little-to-nothing.
2) They are serious and picked Novell because they realized they could dominate and run-over them, in other words set the agenda and pick all the fruits. They might actually intent to improve Windows/Linux interoperability in server environments (among other things), but I highly doubt we'll ever see a MS Linux distro.
The day that MS has to distribute Linux, along with ported apps, is the same day MS goes away (out of biz). If it ever gets to that point, MS is in trouble beyond repair and Linux certainly won't save them. Such a "day" is not within feasible reality at this point.
Or how about the bloody obvious; Novell is creative a .NET clone - aka Mono, and want to be able to re-implement features that are patented, without worrying about legal action; they might also want to add support for Windows Media formats - it isn't new, TurboLinux provides Windows Media support already. IIRC, the cost is only something like $10 per unit in regards to Windows Media licencing.
I'm pulling up a chair for this one.
Finally, a step in the right direction for both companies (nameley Microsoft).
Sweet.
DirectX for Linux would be interesting.
What does Apple have to do with this? Linux is a product, Apple is a company. I don't understand what market you're talking about. Linux beats OSX in the desktop OS market and I'm not sure about servers but I would assume it's beating it there, too. My comment was aimed toward the fact that Microsoft has been bitching and bashing Linux for years because they weren't getting the attention it was in the media. They had no other choice but to accept it.
Apple as in Mac OS, that's the only OS Apple has and Mac OS has been beating Linux for years. When has Linux EVER had more desktop users (market share) than Mac OS (Apple)? Never. And Microsoft beats both of them.
When has Linux EVER had more desktop users (market share) than Mac OS (Apple)? Never.
MacMinute, August 2004
Both found in a 15-second google search.
Now, with the iPod effect, combined with renewed advertising & interest with the switch to Intel, Apple's sales have increased dramatically, so that has swung back, but perhaps you don't remember back to the glory days of Apple ][e, followed by the revolutionary original Macs, all filling the computer labs of educational institutions around the country... then the awful plummet under Sculley. Things haven't always been like they have been for the past couple of years.
MacMinute, August 2004
Both found in a 15-second google search.
Now, with the iPod effect, combined with renewed advertising & interest with the switch to Intel, Apple's sales have increased dramatically, so that has swung back, but perhaps you don't remember back to the glory days of Apple ][e, followed by the revolutionary original Macs, all filling the computer labs of educational institutions around the country... then the awful plummet under Sculley. Things haven't always been like they have been for the past couple of years.
Fair enough. I had looked on Google, but didn't see that. My apologies
As far as MS / nix partnership, it make good sence. The largest portion of web servers are running Apache on nix boxes, followed by IIS on MS boxes. Microsoft has the largest slice of the corp network pie. With expanding remote networking it makes a hell of a lot of sence.
As far as MS / nix partnership, it make good sence. The largest portion of web servers are running Apache on nix boxes, followed by IIS on MS boxes. Microsoft has the largest slice of the corp network pie. With expanding remote networking it makes a hell of a lot of sence.
Make a million off Windows 2003 sales, million off a few payments from Linux companies; in the end, its all good; they're bringing in the cash, and that all that matters at the end of the day.
BigBrit
My faith in Microsoft is shaken. As soon as this is official I am going to go have my Microsoft tattoo removed... with a harsh acid or cheese grater.
As for the campaign, well, it'll finally disprove that most of what they said about UNIX in general is a load of crap.
Last edited by nookadum on 02 Nov 2006 - 22:06
Its a trap!!
Watch out, Ackbar!!
No wai!!
I can't wait to hear the Linux community on this one!
Barney
What if MS does do something like that? They don't really have anything to lose if they can sell it the way Apple sells BSD.
What if MS does do something like that? They don't really have anything to lose if they can sell it the way Apple sells BSD.
Why go for Linux when they can embance OpenSolaris, which is even more scalable, functional, fast, consistant etc; bolt a DirectX accelerated GUI ontop, go banana's with .NET, and voila, push out a brand new OS with none of the baggage.
It's nice and all that Microsoft is getting warm and fuzzy, but of course, I'm sure there is something else that they are going to be going after, or want to use, or some off the wall thing that will screw us somehow.
If Linux is a cancer, then Windows is a festering corpse that should have been buried years ago.
Next thing you know, they'll buy off Novell and just drop Suse/openSuse.
Its the only thing I can think of why they want to get all snuggly to Novell.
(im a dual user) XP/Vista/Ubuntu 6.10/6.06/Suse 10.1 this "announcment" has me intrigued. Novell should do them a deal XGL tech for Direct X tech
Its the only thing I can think of why they want to get all snuggly to Novell.
(im a dual user) XP/Vista/Ubuntu 6.10/6.06/Suse 10.1 this "announcment" has me intrigued. Novell should do them a deal XGL tech for Direct X tech
1. What's lame about aero?
2. XGL appears to do a really bad job with antialiasing. I haven't seen it in action, but I've seen screenshots, with AA supposedly enabled, that looked really bad.
Its the only thing I can think of why they want to get all snuggly to Novell.
(im a dual user) XP/Vista/Ubuntu 6.10/6.06/Suse 10.1 this "announcment" has me intrigued. Novell should do them a deal XGL tech for Direct X tech
1. What's lame about aero?
2. XGL appears to do a really bad job with antialiasing. I haven't seen it in action, but I've seen screenshots, with AA supposedly enabled, that looked really bad.
XGL is still only supported directly with driver options in Beta drivers with NVcards bud atm. Previous driver releaes required Compiz/Beryl. I cant say for ATI cards due to not owning any.
Videos dont exactly show off XGL in all its glory bud AA (x16) looks fine on my 21" tft and 7800GT 512mbr. The AA is implemented by the drivers for the cards and not by XGL itself.
As far as Aero goes the performance hit is higher than the hit i get from XGL and openGL games in *nix on the same hardware. To me Aero feels "bloated" on a code level, which the system requirements re-inforce this.
1) Aero needs a beefy gfx card to run it but XGL will run happily on an Intel 915.
2) To really do anything with Aero Glass, Microsoft says you'll need a DirectX 9-compliant 3D 128-MB video card that supports Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware and includes (WDDM (Windows Device Driver Model) driver. Practically speaking, that means you'll need a 2006-vintage 3D graphics card. The effects in Aero are decent enough but to me the graphic overheads required is too high. Hence calling it "lame"
Essentially both are just eye candy they dont increase productivity.
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