Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
The last time Larry Ellison mulled over buying a company, a corporate war erupted. However, in the end Larry got his way and PeopleSoft is now Oracle. Is the same thing going to happen to Novell? If so, it will be good for Linux and the best thing to happen to desktop computing in 20 years.
Novell is a great company and has done a great job in driving the Suse
Linux project and, Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop is almost there as a
viable replacement for Windows. What Novell does not have is the
marketing clout to take it all the way. Novell is big – but not big
enough to take on Microsoft.
Oracle on the other hand is the
second largest software company in the world and wants to be number
one. Ellison envies Microsoft and has a passion to knock it off its
perch. He wants a bigger yacht than Bill’s – in fact, being the sailor
he is, he probably already has a bigger one.
More important than
yachts and egos, however, an Oracle driven Linux project could change
the world of desktop computing forever. The cost equation would alter
dramatically, provided – and this is a big proviso – that Oracle sticks
to the principles of open source.
Probably the biggest inhibitor
to Linux take-up right now, aside from Microsoft lock-in, is the lack
of third party vendor support. Not enough vendors have taken the time
to develop the necessary drivers to make the Linux distros plug and
play. Novell’s Suse Linux is about as close as you can get today.
However, with Oracle behind it, that would change very quickly, as
would the enthusiasm of software developers to develop for the platform.
Anyone
who has played with a Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop for any length of
time should be able to see the possibilities for extricating themselves
from Windows lock-in. The system already provides users with
transparency to their Microsoft Office files. There is also a bridge
between Microsoft Outlook and the Linux equivalent Evolution. That’s
about 80% of the battle. The other 20% hinges on drivers and web
services that some providers have foolishly tied to Microsoft specific
products such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. Once
again, however, with the rising popularity of the Firefox browser, that
is changing.
Oracle executives have been dropping hints about
the company’s plans for the past few days. All that’s left is for the
company’s founder and chief to declare his hand. We say bring it
on.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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