We’ve probably all heard of Oracle’s purchase of Sun.
That got me to wondering would a big company buy Novell?
Which company would some of are members like to see buy Novell & why that company?
The prospect of any such acquisition leaves me feeling rather cold. As opposed to my current ‘Warm and fuzzy’ feeling. Corporate Homogenization is all very well but it results in very little real concern for the end users.
On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:56:02 +0000, Sagemta wrote:
> We’ve probably all heard of Oracle’s purchase of Sun. That got me to
> wondering would a big company buy Novell? Which company would some of
> are members like to see buy Novell & why that company?
There’s been rumours on and off (mostly on) for years about IBM acquiring
Novell, and occasionally someone suggests Microsoft would. I doubt
either is likely.
Jim
On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:16:02 +0000, caf4926 wrote:
> Corporate Homogenization
> is all very well
I don’t actually agree with this, caf - corporate homogenization tends to
lead to less creative thinking and more “groupthink” (if I can use that
word) about there being fewer ways to do things.
I worked for a very large company that was acquired by (if you can
believe it) a slightly smaller company about 8 years ago. The CEO then
retired, and a new guy was brought in from executive-level management at
GE (totally different industry).
Welch’s book on mangement became our new playbook. On the one hand it
gave us insight into exactly what would happen. On the other hand, it
left (IMHO) very little room for creative approaches to problems, because
it was “the GE way or the highway” in many cases - and because it told us
exactly what would happen.
The merged company was just acquired by another company in the same
industry about a year ago - that type of groupthink and the lack of
creativity (partially put forth by groups on both sides of the initial
acquisition in terms of “our way is better” instead of working together
for more seamless integration of the companies) put the first two
companies - as a combined entity - at a disadvantage in the market and
led to a decline in profits that made them an acquisition target.
Corporate homogenization tends to lead (ultimately) to companies that
“are so big they can’t fail”, even if they are poorly managed. I’m sure
we can all think of an industry that fits this category.
Jim
Novell has enough cash flow at the moment to stay above water. I don’t think anyone will aquire it
You don’t need to buy the whole cow if you need only a cup of milk.
That’s why there is such thing like stocks.
Microsoft wouldn’t have to buy Novell personally but through some funds and people wouldn’t even notice and they could influence Novell without people knowing it at all.
This only means that Novell wouldn’t go looking for it. If someone came in with REALLY big bucks, it would be hard to resist.
yes, indeed. If shareholders approve. Lets hope no one comes around and Novell is able to operate on its own without too much losses. Honestly, Novell is a great company with lots of decent products, something one can’t say when it comes to its management team which suxx 
Wasn’t it already acquired? Last I heard (in the freeBSD forums, I asked about some issues I had setting freeBSD up in my Pangolin), someone said that Microsoft had “pretty much acquired” Novell.
Huh? Don’t believe lies, dude!
I think this gives some basis to the fiction…
iTWire - If Microsoft bought Novell, it wouldn’t come as a surprise
On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:46:02 +0000, fbsduser wrote:
> Wasn’t it already acquired? Last I heard (in the freeBSD forums, I asked
> about some issues I had setting freeBSD up in my Pangolin), someone said
> that Microsoft had “pretty much acquired” Novell.
Signing a partnership deal does not mean “acquisition” by any definition.
Jim
Well, you know how things are on the 'net since the “partnership” happened, with most of the linux community screaming “bloddy murder” and “treason” and other stuff, and it’s not the first time, when linspire and xandros signed the deal with the dev… M$ they got pretty much burned at the stake by the angry mob’s of linux enthusiasts. To simplify, linux zealots hate M$ and really hate when distro makers “join M$”. That is one of those things that really puts linux fans paranoid and up in arms (I say this from experience, I had a part-time job as tech support in a company where all of the IT guys were linux zealots and when the Novell-M$ “partnership” was announced they got so mad that they threw all the SuSE 10 install media they had in the incinerator down in the janitor’s “office” and installed fedora in all the PC’s. When I asked them why they did that they said that Novell is a sellout and that they swore to never support them anymore).
Did such a thing really happen?!
On 4/30/2009 2:06 AM, Nihilanth wrote:
> fbsduser;1979049 Wrote:
>> (I say this from experience, I had a part-time job as tech support in a
>> company where all of the IT guys were linux zealots and when the
>> Novell-M$ “partnership” was announced they got so mad that they threw
>> all the SuSE 10 install media they had in the incinerator down in the
>> janitor’s “office” and installed fedora in all the PC’s. When I asked
>> them why they did that they said that Novell is a sellout and that they
>> swore to never support them anymore).
>
> Did such a thing really happen?!
>
>
If you were around the linux/opensuse community when the deal went down
you would be able to believe that as truth. All the knee-jerk reactions
that happened in those 2-3 months were a little ridiculous and up until
know proved to be a waste as Novell hasn’t become a Microsoft agent.
Though there is a website that came out when the deal happened that
wants you to believe so.
I can believe the story told by fbsduser, but
Though there is a website that came out when the deal happened that
wants you to believe so.
Conspiracy theories from the website of the insane, that’s a bridge too far.
Microsoft already owns a portion of Apple, which I think was part of that $100 Million they invested years ago.
I don’t think IBM would buy Novell, it doesn’t need to.
Now, neither does Oracle since it has the Operating System (Solaris) and Programming Language (Java) and Office Suite (OpenOffice) to itself.
At least there are rumors they may “free willy” (OpenOffice) to fend for itself.
Maybe HP so it can control the hardware and on up the stack, or maybe Novell needs to buy HP and compete with Oracle on everything except the database.
naw… I don’t see Novell getting bought anytime soon from my short list of IT companies.
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:56:01 +0000, fbsduser wrote:
> with most of the linux community screaming “bloddy murder” and
> “treason” and other stuff,
Not most of the community. A few people with big mouths and
personalities. People like PJ over at Groklaw and Bruce Perens, both of
whom I have respected over the years but both of whom I lost respect for
when they lost their sense of perspective.
Most of the community, once they got over the initial shock of Novell and
Microsoft cooperating either decided it was a good thing or didn’t care
one way or the other.
Jim
I don’t think that MS will aquire Novell as this will have huge monopoly problems and other issues that won’t pass through regulation. Remember, Novell holds the UNIX copyright so if MS bought it, MS will have the full power to kill not only Linux but also every other UNIX implementation. I doubt this will be allowed by the regulators
On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:26:01 +0000, microchip8 wrote:
> Novell holds the UNIX copyright so if MS bought it, MS will have the
> full power to kill not only Linux but also every other UNIX
> implementation.
Except that Linux isn’t Unix and nobody has proven that there’s
infringing code in Linux…
Jim