| |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
An additional noteAn additional notePosted Oct 12, 2007 17:18 UTC (Fri) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227)In reply to: An additional note by corbet Parent article: Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat and Novell - Just Like Ballmer Predicted (Groklaw)
"As it is, the fact that Novell, too, is named just calls to attention how thin the "protection" bought by Novell really is."
They never bought any protection. They made a standard patent protection claim that any two tech companies making a large software cross-selling agreement would make. But hey, why ask people who know business when you can ask bigoted tech-nerds about how business deals work?
(Log in to post comments)
An additional note Posted Oct 12, 2007 18:01 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] ...then those millions of dollars paid to Microsoft by Novell are buying exactly what, please? This "bigoted tech-nerd" - who has learned a bit about business deals by virtue of running a business for the last ten years - would sure like to know.
An additional note Posted Oct 12, 2007 18:20 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link] "then those millions of dollars paid to Microsoft by Novell are buying exactly what, please?"
Well, I'm just another tech-nerd, but my understanding was that part of what they bought was a promise that *Microsoft* would not sue *Novell's customers*. Since this suit doesn't involve Microsoft or Novell customers, I don't see how you can draw any conclusions about that deal from this suit.
An additional note Posted Oct 12, 2007 21:58 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] My understanding is that Novell get an exclusive sales relationship. Customers who are looking for something that Microsoft doesn't really do (e.g. Netware integration, or just Unix in general) can be sold SuSE for that job, without Novell spending a penny on customer acquisition.
Usually a Microsoft salesman offers a Microsoft-only deal. They won't suggest that you use products from Oracle, or Logitech, or Google, let alone Red Hat or Apple. And that sometimes loses them valuable deals. Microsoft may still make a bunch of dough from a site license for desktop Windows, but lose all the servers even though the customer would have gone with IIS, they just couldn't stomach MS SQL, or they needed a Java middleware solution and Microsoft suggested rewriting everything with DotNet and C#.
My impression was that this deal means e.g. a Microsoft salesman can include SuSE in a Windows-centric bid to customers who otherwise might not be interested because the Microsoft product offerings don't solve their entire problem. I thought one of the follow-up stories about the deal already said this had boosted Novell's sales ?
microsoft paid novell, not the other way around Posted Oct 13, 2007 18:44 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link] microsoft paid novell millions, and novell agreed to pay microsoft a small amount for each copy of SuSE sold.
microsoft paid novell, not the other way around Posted Oct 13, 2007 20:52 UTC (Sat) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] In other words, Novell is paying a per-unit charge to Microsoft. Which adds up to millions of dollars. Are you disagreeing with that, somehow?
microsoft paid novell, not the other way around Posted Oct 13, 2007 21:33 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link] microsoft paid novell $100+m, novell will pay microsoft a small per-copy fee.
it may be that novell will sell enough copies of SuSE that the balance ends up being in microsoft's favor, possibly by millions, but that's not the case so far, and may never be the case, it all depends how many copies they sell.
but listing it as 'what else did novell pay microsoft millions for' is misleading at best.
microsoft paid novell, not the other way around Posted Oct 13, 2007 21:49 UTC (Sat) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Why is it misleading? What, exactly, is Novell paying for?The balance of payments is completely irrelevant. Novell is paying a tax. I don't understand why the conversation always gets so slippery every time I ask what is being paid for.
microsoft paid novell, not the other way around Posted Oct 14, 2007 4:43 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] Or Novell are giving Microsoft a kick-back on each copy of SuSe MS sell, i.e. a referall fee, paid for from the margins on the unit sold. Which wouldn't be an uncommon or sinister arrangement really.
Or not?
microsoft paid novell, not the other way around Posted Oct 14, 2007 7:47 UTC (Sun) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] Or not. Novell is apparently paying MS a percentage of *all* Suse revenues, including for copies that Novell sold all on their own and MS had nothing to do with -- at least as far as I can tell from the last line of their SEC filing[1], which is admittedly a bit vague.
[1] http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/758004/00007580040...
microsoft paid novell, not the other way around Posted Oct 14, 2007 14:53 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] If this agreement concerned any other two parties, ones not affected by contraversy and suspicion, most people'd conclude that if the Novell-like party were paying based on *all* their sales, that this was agreed because:
- The MS-like party are to spend money marketing Linux and Windows virtualisation /generally/
- The Novell-party should see a general increase in sales (to whatever extent) from such spending, beyond just those sales it sees in direct referrals from the Microsoft-like party.
That'd be the most reasonable explanation if it didn't involve MS..
Business deals Posted Oct 13, 2007 15:22 UTC (Sat) by tony (guest, #3654) [Link] Why not ask someone who understands business?
Oh, I understand business. I understand that big businesses are typically pitiless, underhanded, and work in their own best interest. Therefore, in every business deal, you have to ask, "What's in this for each party?"
In the Novell/Microsoft deal, Microsoft has frequently, loudly, and vehemently proclaimed GNU/Linux and other free software are vulnerable to patents. Microsoft has interest in seeing GNU/Linux die. It has *no* interest at all in seeing GNU/Linux succeed.
So, in view of that, and in Microsoft's ruthless business history, I believe this was no ordinary patent cross-licensing deal (which Novell and Microsoft had for years, anyway). In every analysis, Microsoft had nothing significant to gain.
Near as I can tell, what Microsoft got was a Microsoft proxy to crank out poison pills, such as Moonlight (an attack on web standards, poised to take on "Web 2.0" (a stupid business term)) and OOXML advocates within the free software community.
And finally, there is the reaction by Microsoft itself. Ballmer's statements after the deal were more mafia-like than business-like, implying patent doomsday for anyone who didn't sign a similar deal with Microsoft. This is not typical after a company signs a simple patent cross-licensing agreement. Also, there were reports of Microsoft sales representatives using this deal as pressure against GNU/Linux. (A friend of mine basically had his MS sales rep say, "You upgrade to Vista, everything will be safe. You go with Linux, and there's no telling what might happen.")
So, yeah. In this case, I trust the biased geeks. People who know business don't seem too bright, anyway-- back in 2000, every geek I knew saw the end of the dot-com bubble. Businessmen just kept investing.
|
|
||||||||||||