Divide to Boom?

Raymond Noorda must certainly be turning in his grave. It has
been barely a month since he left for the pearly abode and already his legacy
has been undone. For over a decade, Noorda fought a relentless battle against
the company at Redmond. Noorda was a former CEO of Novell and to him William
Henry Gates III was an unscrupulous usurper who needed to be stopped at all
costs. Novell and Microsoft were bitter enemies, nothing less...could be more.

Thus, Microsoft came out with LAN-Man to beat Novell's Netware
and Novell went on a buying spree, for instance WordPerfect, to take on the
might of Microsoft on the desktop space. Sadly, Novell wasn't David, and burnt
itself hollow in its battle with the Goliath. In 1993, Noorda parted ways with
Novell and set up the Canopy Group that invested in a whole lot of companies
working in the open source space. Novell dragged on.

A decade or so later, Novell did a course correction and in
2003, jumped on the open source bandwagon with the acquisition of SUSE (a few
months before acquiring SUSE, Novell had acquired an open source application
developer company, Ximian). In spite of the shift, Novell could never regain its
past glory. It was a distant second to another open source major, Red Hat. That
was the state a few days back till Novell decided to sellout.

Embrace, Extend, Exterminate

Since the eighties, Microsoft has been at loggerheads with some or all the
IT companies. It is renowned for the subversive tactics that it employs to
nullify opposition. "Embrace, Extend, Exterminate" is supposedly the
corporate philosophy that it lives by. In its three decades of existence,
innumerable companies have either been gobbled up or simply ceased to exist.
Gates (and now Steve Ballmer, CEO) do not look kindly at competition.

Sun, Oracle, Apple, IBM...all have been detractors of Microsoft.
Google was one of the few companies that was able to steal a march over
Microsoft and establish itself as a leader in the online space. Yet, one of
Microsoft's favorite bugbear has been a product company with a cute penguin as
its trademark: Linux. The open source movement is an anathema to Microsoft.

'Halloween documents' is the name given to internal
Microsoft memos that were leaked to the open source community in 1998. It is a
revealing commentary on how Microsoft perceives competition, mainly Linux
kernel-based operating systems. The memos dub open source software as 'a
growing long-term threat to Microsoft's dominance of the software industry.'
The documents supposedly go on to acknowledge that certain parts of Linux are
superior to the versions of Windows available at the time, and outlined a
strategy of "de-commoditize protocols & applications"; or
basing networks and documents around proprietary standards, thus they can only
interoperate with machines that work on Microsoft OS. That was at the turn of
the millennium.

Competition to Coopetition

Noorda in his heydays had popularized the term coopetition, ie, cooperative
competition. This philosophy is the supposed basis on which the Microsoft-Novell
pact is built. The pact has been touted as a symbiotic breakthrough. Yet, on
closer analysis, there seems to be fairly little that Microsoft seems to be
getting out of the deal. But then, remember your kindergarten teacher's
advice? Appearances can be deceptive.

Novell is in a rag-tag shape; SUSE-Linux was certainly not a
match-winner. The deal with Microsoft seems to be God-sent for Novell. First is
the cash inflow, Microsoft would be paying Novell a sum total of $380 mn, that
includes payment for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription certificates, as
money for patent cooperation. Microsoft has also dangled the olive branch, it
will not sue Novell's customers for patent infringement. It will also market
Novell's Linux version to its existing customers.

The new friends would also collaborate in the development of
modern technologies in the space of virtualization, management and document
format compatibility (remember the Halloween documents). So now, Linux,
importantly SUSE-Linux and Windows will be interoperable. A great victory of
sorts for the open source movement, or is it?

Devil's in the Details

The open source movement was turning out to be quite a formidable challenge
for Microsoft (the likes of Google, Amazon, and other Wall Street firms were
using open source systems), there's still some spadework to be done.

As of now, there are two main players servicing the open source
market, namely Red Hat and SUSE-Linux (Novell). While Red Hat has close to 80%
share of the market, Novell makes up for the rest. There are a few other smaller
distributors like Ubuntu, Xandros, Linspire, and others. Strangely, just a few
days before the Microsoft-Novell announcement, Oracle had decided to market its
own version of open source system quite similar to Red Hat's.

Thus, Red Hat could give Microsoft a formidable challenge in the
days to come. Now in one move, the open source market is divided in two camps-one
blessed by Microsoft, and on the other end are the baiters. While it is quite
fashionable for open source developers to chant 'Win-Down' slogans,
corporates and organizations would prefer a more peaceful and cooperative model.
The preference for interoperable systems could boost Novell's sagging fortune
and eat into Red Hat's share (embrace and extend).

The irony was not lost when Ballmer made the statement at a
press conference: "We're here to announce a set of agreements that will
really help bridge the divide between Linux and Windows." Did Linux really
need a bridge that was built in Redmond? Meanwhile Ron Hovsepian, CEO, Novell,
talked about how he initiated the talks with Microsoft and how in the end,
"this announcement gives our customers interoperability and peace of mind
all in one."

India Speak

According to analysts and market sources, Indian players are quite excited
at the prospects of the future. There is significant support for open source
systems in India, and now companies could go in for heterogeneous systems,
combining both Windows and Linux. "A majority of servers in India are
already on the Windows platform, this would give certain users the liberty to go
in for multiple environments, using SUSE-Linux," says Doug Hauger, chief
operating officer, Microsoft (India).

Hauger also pooh-poohs the 'embrace, extend, exterminate'
talk. "All this talk does not really make logical sense. No one owns or
controls GPL (General Public License), so where is the talk of exterminating it.
It all seems quite humorous," says Hauger. He agrees, that Microsoft could
look at a broader initiative in the future, involving more players like Red Hat.

"This pact has really broken new ground. What I find most
exciting is how mindsets will change in the days to come. The religious fervor
sort of days (oh! I do not like Microsoft) are over, and have been replaced with
technical and technological talk. This is the evolution towards a mature
marketplace, a place where technology will take precedence over everything
else," he adds. Meanwhile, the Novell India team seems to be in a
celebratory mood already. According to sources, the top management is currently
in Paris for 'official work'.

Sleeping with the Enemy

Late Noorda had supposedly thwarted two acquisition attempts by Microsoft,
after a failed merger attempt. If Gary Rivlin's "The Plot to Get Bill
Gates," is to be believed, Noorda liked to refer to Gates as
"Pearly" and Ballmer as "The Embalmer." According to Noorda,
Pearly promised the heaven, while the Emballmer dug your grave.

Hopefully it is a different Microsoft and a different strategy.
Probably, history would not really repeat itself. Just one final piece of advice
for Hovsepian, when you dine with the devil, make sure you do not end up on the
menu. May Noorda's soul rest in peace. Amen!

Shashwat Chaturvedi

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in