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Welcome to virtuallinux.org. You are currently reading the article "Novell CEO on the Microsoft deal". All articles on virtuallinux.org pertain to the ongoing assult on the worlds greatest Operating system. Continue on reading about "Novell CEO on the Microsoft deal"
Novell CEO on the Microsoft deal
Posted on Thursday, December 21 2006 @ 07:11:39 EST by linuxwiz |
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The landmark technology
collaboration agreement between Microsoft and Novell took a
controversial twist when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer later proclaimed
that Linux customers have "an undisclosed balance sheet liability"
because Linux "uses our intellectual property." Novell CEO Ron
Hovsepian provided his views on the ensuing controversy, along with a
behind-the-scenes account of how the agreement was reached. Excerpts
from that interview.
CNME: How did the agreement with Microsoft come to pass? Who approached whom, and when?
Hovsepian: This past May, I picked up the phone and called Kevin
Turner, the COO at Microsoft. I knew Kevin when he was the CIO at
Wal-Mart. I said, 'Kevin, I'd like to have a conversation about what
the customer needs. If you could put back on your old hat as a
customer, if I came in and started talking to you about virtualisation
on Linux, and this Microsoft guy showed up and started talking to you
about virtualisation on Windows, what would you say to us?' Kevin,
being a good ex-IT executive, said, 'I'd want both of those things
together. I don't want the fighting, I don't want to deal with it. I'd
tell you two guys to go figure out how to make it work.' I said, 'Well,
that's why I'm calling. How do we make that work around virtualisation?'
My point of view is that customers are going to have J2EE stacks and
.Net stacks in their shops. If I'm a CIO, that's what I'm dealing with:
'What are you guys doing to make my life easier to make those things
work together?' I saw virtualisation as a key to us being able to do
that in a different manner than we have in the past. That was the
genesis of the whole conversation: calling up an old customer and
having a conversation at the customer level. And then it took a lot of
twists and turns.
CNME: How would you characterise Microsoft's reaction?
Hovsepian: Kevin, true to form, said, 'You're absolutely right, that is
how my brain would think as a customer. Wow, that's pretty different,
us working with you guys.' There has been a love-hate thing for a long
time between the two companies, meaning we both love to hate each
other. So Kevin called [Microsoft CEO] Steve [Ballmer] and the rest of
the team and approached it from a customer perspective. A week later we
were all sitting in Chicago having a discussion about virtualisation.
CNME: What was your reaction when you heard about Ballmer's
"undisclosed balance sheet liability" comments? Did you feel like you'd
been blindsided?
Hovsepian: You don't want to get caught off-guard on any of those
things. I do know things can be taken out of context, so I never
overreact too far one way or the other. Obviously, I was disappointed,
because the heart and essence of the deal was around the technology
collaboration and what we want to get done for the customer. I know
they're very committed to that -- we've been having our regular
conference calls with [senior vice president of Microsoft's server and
tools business] Bob Muglia. We're right on our schedule to get all the
details out in a reasonable time period.
We do not see any infringements, and we are not going to agree to any.
Their desire to do some things around IP [intellectual property] came
up as one of the things they wanted to talk about. We said, 'Sure, we'd
be happy to talk about some of those IP things. Because we have our own
portfolio of IP and we saw that when you look at the math, the balance
of trade was $108 million to us and $40 million to them, we never
changed our position.
CNME: Aside from the open letter in response to Ballmer's comments that
you posted on your Web site, did you get on the phone with Ballmer and
ask him what was going on?
Hovsepian: Yes, we did have that communication. I would tell you that
Microsoft -- Steve and [General Counsel] Brad [Smith] and Bob [Muglia]
-- have been very supportive and understanding of our situation. At the
executive level, they've been operating very genuinely -- I have to
give them full credit for that.
CNME: Do you think the patent cooperation part of the agreement with Microsoft is in the best interest of Novell's customers?
Hovsepian: Absolutely. It's good for the customers because they don't
have to worry about those things. I'm disappointed that we haven't
communicated our intent as clearly [as we should have] to the [Linux]
community. The messaging got bogged down.
CNME: Did the patent review turn up any possible violations of Microsoft patents in the Linux source code?
Hovsepian: We absolutely have made no admissions of any infringements,
period, from our point of view. No admissions. I'm not sure that's the
same thing as saying no possible violations have turned up. We did not
do a full review as part of the process. Microsoft may have; we did
not. I think your question was based on an assumption that we did a
deep review, and we didn't.
CNME: Was there anything on the table during your discussions with Microsoft that ultimately didn't pan out?
Hovsepian: A lot of the opening positions, on our side and their side,
were things that were probably perceived by the other side as
unreasonable. One of the things that was unreasonable for me was
Microsoft's initial position that Linux could run as a guest on
Windows, but not Windows on Linux. That was just a non-starter. It had
to be bi-directional so the customer can make that decision.
CNME: What about things that were discussed that didn't make the cut?
Hovsepian: One that we were very interested in would be running some of
their toolsets on our Linux platform -- Visual Studio and other
toolsets. That one didn't make the cut.
CNME: Was the perennial question of a version of Microsoft Office for Linux discussed?
Hovsepian: Yes, that was one of the 'toolsets' I referred to. That one
didn't make the cut, either. As an executive, I understand that they're
protecting their franchise, and I'm respectful of that.
CNME: There have been some reports that GPL version 3 will render your
agreement with Microsoft invalid. What's your position on that?
Hovsepian: That's a process that's in the works right now, and nothing has been published on what the next round will be.
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