Jim Henderson wrote:

> Well, look at Novell's history - MS can't buy Novell (anti-trust 
> concerns).  Novell was in the networking business before Microsoft.  
> Market share did diminish, no doubt, once NT came onto the market (part 
> of the reason was bad management at Novell, part was anticompetitive 
> behaviour on MS' part).

Uh... didn't Novell almost go bankrupt? And aren't they now a tiny 
minority company that most people have almost never heard of?

> So you're saying that because MS is in the server market, nobody should 
> ever try to make a server?  We do very well, thankyouverymuch....

Well, it's your funderal. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> Well, look at Novell's history - MS can't buy Novell (anti-trust
>> concerns).  Novell was in the networking business before Microsoft. 
>> Market share did diminish, no doubt, once NT came onto the market
>> (part of the reason was bad management at Novell, part was
>> anticompetitive behaviour on MS' part).
> 
> Uh... didn't Novell almost go bankrupt? 
Mismanagement, as Jim says.
> ........................................And aren't they now a tiny
> minority company that most people have almost never heard of?
> 
A company that takes full page ads in Computer Weekly is hardly tiny and
a quick straw poll of the ten people I'm currently talking to gives an
80% "yes, of course I know who Novell are". The other 20% are a barmaid
and the pub landlord.
>> So you're saying that because MS is in the server market, nobody
>> should ever try to make a server?  We do very well, thankyouverymuch....
> 
> Well, it's your funderal. ;-)
> 
Why so defeatist? If everyone rolled over and died when M$ entered a
market there would be no innovation and CERN for one would be trying to
do its calculations on some 20-y-o IBM Big Iron. (I exaggerate but ykwim)

John

-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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>> ........................................And aren't they now a tiny
>> minority company that most people have almost never heard of?
>>
> A company that takes full page ads in Computer Weekly is hardly tiny and
> a quick straw poll of the ten people I'm currently talking to gives an
> 80% "yes, of course I know who Novell are". The other 20% are a barmaid
> and the pub landlord.

I was about to comment that I've never ever seen any kind of advert for 
Novell (even when they were popular). But then I realised... I don't 
*read* anything that might realistically contain such an advert...

> Why so defeatist? If everyone rolled over and died when M$ entered a
> market there would be no innovation and CERN for one would be trying to
> do its calculations on some 20-y-o IBM Big Iron. (I exaggerate but ykwim)

Well, let's face it. If *you* break the law, you get fined and/or shut 
down. If M$ breaks the law... actually, nothing happens. So basically MS 
is playing to completely different rules - on top of being absurdly 
wealthy. How do you stand a chance?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> .... How do you stand a chance?
> 

By never giving up :-)

John

-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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>> .... How do you stand a chance?
>>
> 
> By never giving up :-)

LOL! If *that* worked, I'd have got laid years ago! ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 escribió:
>>
>> By never giving up :-)
> 
> LOL! If *that* worked, I'd have got laid years ago! ;-)

LOL!

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On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:31:28 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> Well, look at Novell's history - MS can't buy Novell (anti-trust
>> concerns).  Novell was in the networking business before Microsoft.
>> Market share did diminish, no doubt, once NT came onto the market (part
>> of the reason was bad management at Novell, part was anticompetitive
>> behaviour on MS' part).
> 
> Uh... didn't Novell almost go bankrupt? 

No.  Novell went from having a near monopoly position in the market to 
not having a near monopoly position in the market.

> And aren't they now a tiny
> minority company that most people have almost never heard of?

Ever hear of SUSE Linux?  That's a Novell product.  Go check in at the 
airport sometime and look at the login screen on the terminal - most 
likely, it's a Novell login dialog you'll see.  Star Alliance is but one 
of many very large customers Novell has.  We penned a deal with Pugeout 
to replace 20,000 desktops with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop because it 
was a better fit than Windows for those particular users (note that 
Pugeout has about 70K desktops; this is not a total desktop replacement).

>> So you're saying that because MS is in the server market, nobody should
>> ever try to make a server?  We do very well, thankyouverymuch....
> 
> Well, it's your funderal. ;-)

People have been saying that for damned near 20 years now.  If I had a 
nickel for every time someone said "Novell will be gone in 5 years", I 
could have retired.  Still here, still growing, currently expanding the 
development center in India (how can a "nearly bankrupt company" invest 
over $100 million in India over the next three years?  Huh? Or to be 
acquiring companies - Sitescape, Platespin, SuSE, eSecurity, Immunix, 
Ximian - and on and on and on.  Or to pursue litigation against Microsoft 
pertaining to antitrust violations?  Or to be seen by Microsoft to be 
enough of a threat to sign a partnership agreement *in spite of* the 
antitrust lawsuit?)

By your logic, nobody should ever have dared to compete with Standard 
Oil, or with AT&T in the US telecommunications industry.  Monopolies fall.

Novell has been *very* well known in the industry as a technology leader 
with totally crap marketing.  Microsoft's products as a general rule are 
technologically *years* behind.  Active Directory lags eDirectory by 
about 7 years of development - and as a poorly implemented copy of 
eDirectory it's pretty pathetic.

Jim

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On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:02:19 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Well, let's face it. If *you* break the law, you get fined and/or shut
> down. If M$ breaks the law... actually, nothing happens. So basically MS
> is playing to completely different rules - on top of being absurdly
> wealthy. How do you stand a chance?

Um, Microsoft has been fined by the EC for its antitrust violations.  
It's having to open information about development on Windows that it 
would rather have kept secret and proprietary.

That's hardly "nothing happens".  I personally would have liked to see 
the US DOJ break them up back when the antitrust trial was going on - but 
the leading party in the US changed hands and the DOJ rolled over and 
played dead on that.  The EC is doing a far better job than the DOJ at 
punishing MS for it's anticompetitive behaviour.

When someone's behaving badly, the wrong thing to do is to give up just 
because "you can't beat them".

Jim

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And lo on Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:33:03 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> you either have to accept that things will be changed slightly and  
>> re-check all your documents or use the depreciated tags that only  
>> Microsoft knows how to parse correctly.
>
> This was my point. If you use ODF, you have to do that every time you  
> change word processor anyway, since ODF doesn't specify layout any  
> better than OOXML does.

Which makes one ask why use OOXML and not ODF, with the main answer  
appearing to be that you can keep your old Microsoft formatting relatively  
intact.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Phil Cook wrote:
> Which makes one ask why use OOXML and not ODF, with the main answer 
> appearing to be that you can keep your old Microsoft formatting 
> relatively intact.

Exactly. And if you need that in your "open" product, you're going to 
need an "open" product which substantially replicates all of Word anyway.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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