Novell approves 'Windows cheaper than Linux' statement
- From: "Philip" <home.home1@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:35:31 GMT
Novell has issued a joint press release with Microsoft, in which HSBC, a
customer of joint technology from the two companies, claims that Windows has
a lower total cost of ownership than Linux.
The press release, issued late on Wednesday, announced that UK-based bank
HSBC has agreed to adopt technology from Novell and Microsoft's recently
announced partnership.
In the release, Matthew O'Neill, group head of distributed systems for HSBC
Global IT operations, states that the bank's existing Linux environment is
more expensive to maintain than its Windows environment. "Some will be
surprised to learn that our Windows environment has a lower total cost of
ownership than our current Linux environment."
HSBC claims it will achieve cost savings by reducing the number of Linux
distributions it uses and by improving the interoperability of its
open-source operating system deployments with Windows. "Our decision to
simplify our mixed-source environment with Microsoft and Novell will allow
us to reduce the cost and complexity," said O'Neill.
Although it is unclear at this time which Linux distributions the bank is
using, the fact Novell is associated with a statement that claims Linux has
a higher total cost of ownership than Windows will surprise and anger many
in the open-source community.
Previously, Novell has been a vociferous proponent of the cost savings
offered by open-source software. Speaking at BrainShare, the company's
annual user conference in Barcelona in 2004, Novell chief Jack Messman
claimed that Microsoft's exhaustive licence fees for Windows have prevented
end-user organisations and independent software developers from directing
cash into more "innovative" software.
"I am of the opinion that innovation has been slowed because of Microsoft.
It has sucked $60bn out of our industry that could have been used for
innovation," Messman said. "My vision is that companies won't have to spend
so much on operating systems which have been commoditised and spend more on
innovation."
But after a long and bloody tussle with Microsoft over patents that both
parties held on each other's software, Novell announced in November last
year that it was laying aside its past differences with the Redmond company
and launching a partnership.
The companies said that they will collaborate on development of specific
technologies, for example to help Windows work with Novell's Suse Linux. The
companies will create a joint research facility at which they will build and
test new products, and work with customers and the open-source community.
The research will include Novell offering a version of Suse Linux Enterprise
Server with optimised virtualisation features for Windows Server Longhorn,
expected to launch later this year.
Novell's Microsoft-friendly makeover was marked by the dismissal of its
chief executive Jack Messman, who was let go in June last year. However, his
replacement, Ron Hovsepian, has not completely resisted the odd dig at
Microsoft.
Speaking at a press conference in Sydney recently, Hovsepian said he was
pleased by the slow uptake of Microsoft's desktop operating system
Vista."We're excited by the muted reaction to Vista," he said. "We're going
to attack [Microsoft] vigorously and go after their footprint as much as we
can," Hovsepian said.
Vista was five years in the making, so the code behind it is very complex
according to Hovsepian, whereas open source is more nimble and flexible.
"And we have got to take advantage of that."
The HSBC announcement will see the bank, which has 9,500 offices and 284,000
employees in 76 countries, sign up to a three-year support subscription to
Suse Linux Enterprise Server from Novell.
Despite the marked differences in approach between open-source supporters
and proprietary companies such as Microsoft, HSBC's blended approach to
using the software is not uncommon. Speaking at a conference last year, Phil
Dawson, Gartner research vice president, said that the analyst group was
increasingly receiving feedback from its clients showing that there is a
real growth in companies that want to run open-source software stacks on top
of Windows, or proprietary software on top of Linux.
"The traditional approach has been an all-commercial Windows stack or a full
open-source, Linux-based stack, but these are two extremes of the pendulum.
The real growth is in the middle ground," Dawson said.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39286295,00.htm
Hahaha!
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