Well, This Is a Bit Weird
Via CNet, Reuters is reporting that Dell joins Microsoft, Novell in Linux pact.
Microsoft said on Monday Dell had joined a business collaboration it had with Novell to allow open-source Linux software to work with Windows.
[snip]
Under the latest agreement, Dell will purchase Suse Linux Enterprise Server certificates, Microsoft said. Suse Linux is Novell’s operating system.
Dell will also establish a services and marketing program to migrate existing Linux users who are not Dell Linux customers to Suse Linux, Microsoft said.
“Linux users who are not Dell Linux customers” is an interesting limitation given that Dell announced on May 1st that it would be supplying Ubuntu Linux on its systems. This must be something that Microsoft is doing and using Windows licensing to encourage Dell to go along, because supporting and promoting a version of Linux different than your corporate choice doesn’t make much sense otherwise.
4 comments
Read NTodd’s latest Dell Hell post about his laptop. You don’t want one of their computers, at least not their laptops, no matter what OS it has on it.
On the OS question, they seem to be going forward to supply their machines with Ubuntu, but are going to support Suse on other machines or for existing Novell/Windows systems that are looking for conversion.
My problem with Suse is that bit about purchasing server certificates. Not exactly the spirit of Linux.
I would mention that all of the hinges on laptops suck.
Microsoft (possibly Novell as well; I don’t know) has a history of co-opting someone else’s product and “enhancing” it… locking people and companies into the Microsoft version rather than complying with standards. The result with Java was a lawsuit by Sun. The result with IE before the current version was a browser that displayed standards-compliant pages abominably. The result with FrontPage was a tool that generated web pages viewable only with IE. I do not see why any customer company would want to put up with that into the indefinite future. One major point of switching to Linux, for me at least, is getting out from under Bill’s big fist.
The hinges on my WinBook laptop have been trouble-free for a year now. Unfortunately, WinBook is now out of the laptop business; they switched to manufacturing HDTVs instead. “Nothing gold can stay,” as Robert Frost never said about computer equipment.
Microsoft has a history of stealing other people’s code and paying for it after they get hauled into court. To cover for their theft they usually make changes that break the code [see MS-DOS 6.0 and Stacker or MS-DOS 4.0 and Golden Bow].
They are not a suitable participant in the Linux world because they don’t follow standards. The Unix world, of whatever flavor, only functions because people adhere to the standards which allows people with disparate hardware to function in the same environment.
Novell has a habit of doing the same thing, forcing people to accept their specifications as standards, and buying up companies that can do a better job than they can with those specifications.
Linux is the future because of what Microsoft has not done with their product and what they have done to their users.
Dell needs to get back to basics and improve their quality control program. The current system of using customers as quality control for hardware and software is a real PIA. If you are going to follow that path, you can’t charge people.