Microsoft, Novell toast anniversary with tools, support coupons

I wonder how many SysAdmins like me are out there. The last two shops I've worked in have Windows running the infrastructure, with Linux/AIX/Solaris a niche player for specific applications (web services, database clusters, etc). When the whole enterprise is plugged into AD, mails with Exchange, monitors with SCOM (or MOM), the pull of SuSE can get quite powerful. SuSE becomes the one true Linux, guaranteed to work with AD, free of messy IP entanglements, and easy to fit into your Windows world. It's cheap, it's easy, and it gets the job done. That's why SuSE won the battle at the last shop I worked at, and it may at this one too. Software freedom is not part of the SLA's, they're about everything working together, and not having to have too many bodies around to hold the windows edges together with the linux edges. MS is going to make SuSE a juggernaut on a wide, well-paved downhill highway, and it's going to give the RH folks many sleepless nights. I sincerely hope that RH (or Canonical) are up to the task.

But in five years all of this will be in a cloud somewhere, right?

Dave

bleh. The sooner I can get everything migrated away from sles the better. and I will make a point of telling the novell sales manager why.

Quoting:The sooner I can get everything migrated away from sles the better. and I will make a point of telling the novell sales manager why.

He is not likely to care. For every one client who avoids SLES because of MS ties, they will pick up three or four thanks to those ties. The business world isn't about idealism, it's about getting things done as efficiently as possible.

Quoting:The business world isn't about idealism, it's about getting things done as efficiently as possible.

I thought it was about signing contracts with whoever gives the PHBs the best "incentives" and bribes..... Or maybe I'm just cynical....

Quoting: [This is] about signing contracts with whoever gives the PHBs the best "incentives" and bribes.....

Sorry, no it doesn't. It only happens in well managed, mature companies.

> I thought it was about signing contracts with whoever gives the PHBs the best "incentives" and bribes.....

No, that's specific to business "management".

Quoting:He is not likely to care. For every one client who avoids SLES because of MS ties, they will pick up three or four thanks to those ties. The business world isn't about idealism, it's about getting things done as efficiently as possible.

Perhaps you misunderstood me. I'm not expecting the Novell sales manager to be idealistic - even though he is a nice enough guy. I'm voting with my wallet. I choose who I want to do business with, and direct the funds accordingly.

It's too bad really, suse is a nice distro, but novell cutting a special deal with microsoft, giving credibility to the microsoft FUD to the detriment of the linux ecosystem, is not a good long term strategy. It may have gotten them a wad of cash and some pollyanna press releases, but they've alienated the community on whose shoulders they stand. I predict a gradual withering of their base over time.

I choose to give preference to those linux vendors who have not drunk the microsoft koolaid. Is that so bad?

Quoting:He is not likely to care.

Maybe he will care, maybe he won't, but that's not really the point, if he does care, that's a bonus, and maybe if enough people are doing what herzeleid is doing, Novell will get the message. What's actually important is that you, or, in this case, herzeleid, is happy with the reason for going somewhere else, and I think other Linux vendors could do with the loving.