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[News] Novell Shows That Selling Out to Microsoft Does Not Pay Off

  • Subject: [News] Novell Shows That Selling Out to Microsoft Does Not Pay Off
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 10:16:29 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Freelance
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
The effects of open source on stock prices

,----[ Quote ]
| Has open source been positive or negative for its primary (commercial) 
| proponents? That's the question I asked myself yesterday about Red Hat, Sun, 
| and Novell, and found the answer interesting. I looked at these three as 
| they, more than any others, have results that can be isolated and directly 
| attributed to open source. A company like IBM does a lot with open source, 
| but it's harder to discern the effects on the company's stock price because 
| its embrace of open source is less pronounced/distinct among its other 
| corporate policies.       
| 
| [...]
| 
| By mid-2004, however, Novell's stock price settled into the $6 to $8 per 
| share range that it has maintained for the past four years. Analysts have 
| waited for Novell's Linux and open-source story to fully materialize. Despite 
| Novell's hype on the importance of its November 2006 patent agreement with 
| Microsoft, the agreement has had no lasting impact on the value of the 
| company. It helped to lift Novell's stock price in 2007...only to see it 
| crumble back to the too-familiar $6 per share level.      
`----

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9895316-16.html


Related and recent:

MIX - Novell's de Icaza criticizes Microsoft patent deal

,----[ Quote ]
| Open-source pioneer and Novell Vice President Miguel de Icaza Thursday for 
| the first time publicly slammed his company's cross-patent licensing 
| agreement with Microsoft as he defended himself against lack of patent 
| protection for third parties that distribute his company's Moonlight project, 
| which ports Microsoft's Silverlight technology to Linux.    
| 
| Speaking on a panel at the MIX 08 conference in Las Vegas, de Icaza said that 
| Novell has done the best it could to balance open-source interests with 
| patent indemnification. However, if he had his way, the company would have 
| remained strictly open source and not gotten into bed with Microsoft. Novell 
| entered into a controversial multimillion dollar cross-patent licensing and 
| interoperability deal with Microsoft in November 2006.     
| 
| "I'm not happy about the fact that such an agreement was made, but [the 
| decision] was above my pay grade; I think we should have stayed with the 
| open-source community," de Icaza said. He was speaking on a panel that also 
| included representatives from Microsoft and open-source companies Mozilla and 
| Zend.    
| 
| [...]
| 
| De Icaza shot back that it was "unfair" of Schroepfer to paint Novell as the 
| only company protected by patent covenants, as many companies have signed 
| licensing agreements not only with Microsoft, but also with other companies 
| such as IBM that have a large patent portfolio.   
| 
| [...]
| 
| The choice has drawn ire from open-source diehards who were displeased with 
| Novell’s decision to sign a cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft in the 
| first place. A Web site called “Boycott Novell” decried Moonlight as a 
| Microsoft “pet project” and criticized the company’s decision not to port 
| Silverlight to Linux itself.    
`----

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/03/06/mix-novells-de-icaza-criticizes-microsoft-patent-deal

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