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 stunning announcement today from Microsoft that it has gotten into bed with Novell and will support Suse Linux has got industry tongues wagging all over the world as to what it will mean. Two things spring to mind. Coming on the back of Oracle's Red Hat support announcement, it signals a move by the big hitters to muscle in and hijack the Linux support gravy train and it ends the aspirations of smaller Linux players.
Red Hat, the Linux distribution market
leader, went into a state of shock a few days ago when Oracle announced
it would provide Red Hat support at half price. Red Hat shares
plummeted and now sit at less than half their price of just six months
ago. The fact that a few words from Larry Ellison could have such an
effect demonstrates the vulnerability of the independent Linux players.
The collaborative agreement with Microsoft and Novell, however, is
somewhat different. It provides Novell with access to Microsoft
customers and gives Microsoft an entry into the Linux support market.
Microsoft is due to release Windows Vista at the end of this month.
However, the Windows operating system market is near saturation point
and growing very slowly. Meanwhile, Linux is moving into areas that
Windows has been unable to reach.
Microsoft recognizes that it is missing out on business by not opening
up Windows to open source applications like PHP, which is why it
announced its partnership with Zend Technologies yesterday. It is also
missing out on business by not using its huge workforce, market reach,
financial resources and on-board expertise to offer Linux support.
Novell, a company which has a long history of working with Windows
users, is more natural partner for Microsoft than Red Hat and its move
into the Linux space should provide a significant boost for Suse Linux.
The latest move by Microsoft is a long time coming recognition that
Linux and open source software are here to stay, so it's time for
Microsoft to jump in and take its cut.
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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