Time is ripe for Microsoft to buy Novell

Sam Varghese
Saturday, 25 April 2009 07:13

Business IT - Technology

There are several reasons why Microsoft could sell Novell's products better than the Utah-based firm does; Novell has always had a problem in demonstrating to customers the value proposition of its products. Microsoft has never had this problem - it errs on the other side.

Bear in mind that even the one product which made Novell dominate networking in the 1980s - Netware - was built by three contractors (Drew Major, Kyle Powell and Dale Neibaur) who were not its employees; the product was discovered by venture capitalists who came looking for anything that could be salvaged from a company that was slowly sinking.

Who better than Microsoft to sell a Linux suite and pledge that it will work well with Windows? Who better than Microsoft to say that the Linux suite it sells will never face any patent problems from itself?

There would be no need for Microsoft to do anything with SUSE Linux but increase the Windows interoperability factor. That would suffice for sales to balloon. It could keep the same developers on the job.

There would be plenty of support from Novell for a takeover - people like vice-presidents Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza would be major backers of any takeover bid.

There would, of course, be some casualties but it would all be to Microsoft's benefit. Any competing product lines - and there are quite a few - could be discontinued, increasing Microsoft's marketshare for its own products and its influence in the sector in question.

And that would lead to just one thing - the ability to charge what Microsoft wants.

No company has influence with dealers and retailers as much as Microsoft does. It would be child's play to sell SUSE Linux on the business desktop. And given that Microsoft could fix its own pricing for SUSE, there would be no loss of revenue.

Remember, there is nobody in the market selling Linux on the business desktop other than Novell. It lacks the clout and the ability to sell, that's all. Nobody could accuse Microsoft of lacking either of these factors when it comes to selling.

As netbooks have grown in popularity, Microsoft has dropped the price of Windows 7 to a fraction of the real cost in order to be competitive in that market. But it has had to offer a severely crippled version to try and get customers to upgrade to the full version.

Imagine if Microsoft offered SUSE Linux on netbooks - who wouldn't be willing to buy a fully functional operating system with a full suite of applications?

Can you imagine how much the level of support for Linux would rise among manufacturers of peripherals if Microsoft was in the game?

There are lots of pluses and hardly any minuses when it comes to picking up Novell on the cheap. It would hardly make a dent in Microsoft's cash reserves. And it would be much more surprising to the market than Oracle's purchase of Sun. Novell stock would hit the roof.

Steve Ballmer, remember where you read about this idea. And send me my commission through the Cayman Islands.