SUSE/Novell

Novell strengthens commitment to Mono

As part of the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Ca. today, Novell announced the availability of MonoDevelop 2.0 and Mono 2.4. MonoDevelop 2.0 is an open source integrated development environment for programming with C# and other languages. Mono 2.4 is the latest release of the open source, cross-platform .NET application framework that powers the SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension.

“By making .NET application development and deployment accessible for Linux, the Mono project is committed to expanding ISV and corporate developers’ options beyond the Windows platform,” said Miguel de Icaza, vice president of Development Platforms at Novell and leader of the Mono project. “With the newest releases for Mono and MonoDevelop, we continue to improve and extend the development tools and framework to deliver on this goal. The features and functionality available in this release are allowing developers to increase the number of .NET applications that are built and run on Linux.”

Mono 2.4 enables ISVs, independent developers, and corporate developers to run .NET client and server applications on Linux across a range of hardware architectures, including the mainframe. Additionally, with the recent introduction of SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension, customers and ISVs can also receive full support, security and upgrades when using Mono in the enterprise. New features available in Mono 2.4 include:

• Performance improvements and runtime innovations – A new code generation engine greatly improves the performance of executing .NET applications on the Mono runtime, while managed Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) extensions enable developers to take advantage of hardware acceleration without having to program in lower-level languages. Additional runtime innovations, such as full ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation, bring Mono-based applications to new platforms, including the Apple iPhone.
• Support for the latest features of ASP.NET – ASP.NET developers targeting Linux can now leverage the latest ASP.NET features, including ASP.NET 3.5 extensions, new web controls, ASP.NET routing APIs, and ASP.NET AJAX. Mono 2.4 can also host applications built using the Microsoft ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC) framework.
• Hosting pre-compiled websites – Mono now hosts ASP.NET websites and applications which have been pre-compiled on .NET. This reduces startup times, enables ISVs to distribute web applications without distributing source code, and improves Mono’s support of ASP.NET sites built with Visual Basic.

“A lot of the effort has been focused on performance, but a lot of that is under the covers,” explained Joseph Hill, Novell product manager for Mono. “We upgraded our JIT engine which enables code to run a lot faster. In at least one real-world use case it meant a gain of 30 requests/sec to 120 requests/sec.”

“On the performance side we built a new technology for generating code on the fly – in some apps the performance only improved 10%, but in others 300%,” de Icaza explained. Part of this improvement relates to allowing granular control over the logs to make sure they wouldn’t log the entire process across the board.

Much of this performance enhancement was caused by receiving customer feedback from the gaming industry.

“We’ve been working with a couple of companies that work with high performance games and 3D apps and they were running into a bottleneck and neither .NET or Mono were able to keep up with the loads,” said de Icaza.

Novell responded, and is looking for new information from other users to determine what other areas could be improved.

“It is interesting because we’re adding new functionality to the .NET run-time that hadn’t previously been exposed,” said de Icaza. “We’re open to getting new information.”

There are a few companies with games on the Web based on Mono. According to de Icaza, the most hyped example is the Cartoon Network’s multiplayer online kid’s game FusionFall.

Celebrating the holidays with Linux

This week I went and picked up two ornaments from my local “Giving Tree,” did some shopping, and returned some gifts to be distributed to children in need. This is the third year that I’ve participated in this community giving project, and this year I noticed that the tree was absolutely covered with ornaments for needy children. In these tough economic times, I think it’s important to help out our communities if we are able. We’ve reported that Red Hat has donated the money for the company party to a local food bank. And employees at mobile phone company Funambol have organized a food drive. Whether you’re ready or not (and whether you’ve been good or bad this year), the holiday season is here! I found some stories and ideas about how you might make the most of it this year from the Linux community.

Just in time for the holidays, HP released it’s preinstalled SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) 10 SP2 on its HP Compaq dc5850. (I wonder if the name SLED is a coincidence, or if they held off the release to get it out with the snowy weather?) Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has already been reviewing SLED 10 SP2 on his blog, noting that the main improvements surround interoperability with Microsoft. He shares that the new version of SLED supports read and write access to local NTFS drive partitions and has better active directory integration. Vaughn-Nichols installed SLED and encountered a few kinks — a hassle that can be avoided in HP’s preinstalled offering.

But if all of that sounds too practical, or dare I say too boring, fear not — Ken Hess has provided a Linux geek wish list for the 2008 holiday season.You may already have a Linux mobile phone, but do you have a Chumby? Hess points out that all of these gadgets have Linux inside. What more could you want?

1. Asus Eee PC
2. Chumby
3. MusicPal
4. LimeBook
5. Linux-based phones
6. Amazon Kindle
7. MVIX MX-760HD
8. Garmin Nuvi880
9. Nokia N810
10. TiVo

But if you don’t want to spend a bunch of dough, Matt Hartley provides some ideas of “homemade” items that you can give your family and friends by putting your Linux skills to use.

… by utilizing your existing computer system, chances are you already have access to what you need to build a really great gaming rig, with the right open source videos games. Enter PlayDeb for Ubuntu. Whether you download each game individually or opt to give the “gift of plenty” all at once, there are more games here than most people would likely have ever imagined.

From Second Life to a number of very well done first-person shooters, even 3D strategy games, just about anything you might conceive of is available here — at no cost whatsoever.

Hartley also suggests updating an unused notebook and giving the gift of Internet, anywhere, to a loved one. Or spread the joy to your community and give “an off-lease or even totally used PC preloaded with Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuSE or PCLinuxOS.”

SUSE Linux is growth engine for Novell

Linux is alive and well at Novell Inc.

In its year-end fiscal report yesterday, the Waltham, Mass.-based company reported that open source products, primarily Linux, rose $34.8 million or 37% to $128.8 million in 2008. Fourth-quarter open source revenues rose just a whisker less or 36.1% to $35.7 million.

The increases far outstripped Novell’s other three product divisions, which are identity and security management, systems and resource management, and its workgroup division.

For the 2008 fiscal year, Novell’s total revenues were $957 million, compared with $932 million in 2007, and its net annual loss was $9 million in 2008, compared with a net loss of $44 million the previous year.

Thanks to aggressive pricing and key partnerships with companies such as Microsoft and SAP, the company’s Linux growth rates far exceeded the 22% increase in the overall Linux market, said Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian. SUSE Linux Enterprise, which grew its market share an additional 3% in 2007, added 3,000 new Linux customers this year, including many large enterprises, he said.

Hovsepian added that Microsoft has sold $195 million of the $240 million in SUSE Linux certificates it bought as part of the 2006 pact between the two companies and has purchased an additional $25 million so far this year, Hovsepian said. In 2008, Novell also has increased its independent software vendor agreements significantly, he added.

Discussing the company as a whole, Hovsepian said Novell has made great progress over the past two years, achieved all its milestones for 2008 and, in turn, stabilized and strengthened the company. While acknowledging that the current uncertain economic climate doesn’t lend to detailed forecasts, Hovsepian said Novell will continue to strive for operational improvement and long-term profitability.

Novell hurts itself with Red Hat swipe

In an obvious swipe at its larger rival, Waltham, Mass.-based Novell Inc. crowed this week that SUSE Linux Enterprise has surpassed all other Linux distros with 2,500 vendor-certified applications running on top of its operating system. If true, this would be quite astonishing since Raleigh, N.C.-based Red Hat Inc. has a far larger Linux market share.

Upon querying Novell’s PR agency, Andover, Mass.-based Pan Communications Inc. responded with a link to the Red Hat  Software Catalog which lists 2,166 certified software vendors, not applications, so Novell isn’t comparing apples to apples.

A Red Hat spokeswoman said, however, that there are 3,400 vendor applications certified to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

This is silliness. I feel like a mom telling two toddlers to go back to their sandboxes. (Red Hat is not really at fault here since it didn’t rush forth with a counterpunch.)  I’m probably more fascinated than the competition between these two companies and their strategies than anyone else I know. But this little self-promotion was a waste of time. And Novell, with its carefully worded misleading statements, has a lot to lose: its credibility. Let’s declare the “I’m bigger than you are” nonsense all over. Let’s all get back to work.

Novell promotes SLES in 11-city Linux tour

Waltham, Mass.-based Novell Inc. wrapped up a whirlwind three-week U.S. tour promoting SUSE Linux Enterprise yesterday with a packed presentation at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, a relatively short distance from its headquarters. The tour, which began Sept. 25 in Dallas, included 11 U.S. cities. The final stop is Oct. 21 in São Paulo, Brazil.

Speaking before an 80-member audience, two Novell engineers presented SUSE as a comprehensive Linux platform with the tools and applications to run a seamlessly managed, automated data center and address OS, management applications and virtualization. They also hinted at future improvements in virtualization, security and file systems.

Geared more to prospects than customers, the lively discussion encouraged audience participation, rewarding questioners with Linux penguins that featured the Novell logo, of course. The presentation included an impressive demo of live migration, moving a new James Bond movie from server to desktop without interruption.

Hewlett-Packard Co., which sponsored the event, made its hardware pitch during lunch.

The event was a great way to get Novell’s message out there. And the view of Boston from the top of the Hyatt was fantastic.

Mono 2.0 boosts Linux compatibility with Microsoft .Net

Mono 2.0 is now available for download. An open source project sponsored by Waltham, Mass.-based Novell Inc., Mono is a Unix-based tool that enables Microsoft .Net applications to run on Linux, Solaris or Macintosh platforms.

Mono 2.0 follows two previous versions of Mono, with the first released in 2004 and the second in 2006. The latter version was used to write Moonlight, an open source plug-in to Microsoft’s Silverlight for creating interactive applications.

The key advance in Mono 2.0, a spokesman said, is that it achieves full compatibility with .Net, where the previous versions only reached partial capability with .Net. Mono 2.0 also includes a debugger, a Language Integrated Query from .Net 3.5 and a Migration Analyzer.

Michael Cote, an analyst with Denver, Colo.-based Redmonk, said the new version of Mono helps the Linux platform by enabling .Net developers to work on Windows as well as open source platforms.

“It’s great to give companies the option of using the underlying OS of their choice,” Cote said.

Mono 2.0 may be downloaded from http://www.mono-project.com.

Novell pledges to fix ZenWorks snafu

Sometimes stories about customer problems have happy endings.

One day after publication, the Novell ZenWorks problem that I blogged about Sept. 17 appears to be on its way to resolution. Not that resolution was speedy; the issue was the topic of numerous emails between the customer, Novell and TechTarget for three weeks.

Grant Nickle, IT director for Louisville, Ky.-based Underwriters Safety & Claims, told me in mid-August that ZenWorks 10, a configuration management application, had many improvements over its predecessor but contained a key flaw: It wouldn’t retain user identities and settings in the cache after a user signed off or was no longer on the network. The omission is critical for an IT department that manages hundreds of desktops because there is no other way to preserve user identities except through Microsoft Active Directory. Making matters worse, Nickle never got a promised call from tech support.

Yesterday afternoon, however, Nickle spoke directly with the product manager, who assured Nickle that the full functionality of the Dynamic Local User, which used to remember each user’s desktop settings and files, would be restored prior to Novell’s next Brainshare user conference in March. And Nickle has the product manager’s name and phone number to make sure he keeps his promise. In the meantime, Nickle will have to rely on ZenWorks 7, which doesn’t work with Microsoft Vista, but at least he knows he’s got a finite time to wait for a fix.

Actually, Nickle did Novell a favor by bringing a problem, which others in the user forum have complained about as well, to its attention. Kudos to Novell for recognizing and addressing the issue. Nevertheless, a nagging suspicion remains that it’s not as easy for an average user to bring a real problem to a software company’s attention as it should be. And that’s something all software companies should be striving aggressively to remedy. Just like nurses and physicians who need to be alert to minor symptoms of potentially major illnesses, there ought to be a way for software companies to flag a complaint that points to a serious problem and direct it out of normal channels to someone who can assess and remedy the issue. In the meantime, though, I’m celebrating Nickle’s victory. Novell listened and acted. And that’s a victory for us all.

Novell ZenWorks 10 log-in snafu wipes out non-Microsoft desktops, IT director says

Sometimes the latest is not the greatest.

Just ask Grant Nickle, IT director at Louisville, Ky.-based Underwriters Safety & Claims. An avid fan of Waltham, Mass.-based Novell Inc., SUSE Linux Enterprise and ZenWorks configuration management software, Nickle was in for a big disappointment when he finally got around to testing ZenWorks 10, which he’d had for about a year while continuing to run version 7.

Nickle discovered to his dismay that in version 10, ZenWorks’ Dynamic Local User doesn’t cache or save individual desktop settings, files and icons when the machines are turned off or disconnected from the corporate network. Unlike version 7, the desktop and all its settings and data must be re-created with every startup, which is a big problem when your job is to create and manage user IDs for several hundred desktops.

“This is a big problem,” Nickle said. ZenWorks used to be a great work-around for managing users without Microsoft’s Active Directory because it managed Windows users as well as those running other operating systems. Now, ZenWorks is useless, he says.

Ironically, Novell is pitching ZenWorks 10 as a way to encourage businesses to migrate from Novell Netware to Linux, a move Nickle would be only too happy to make since he runs SUSE Enterprise Linux on his servers.

In an Aug. 28 e-mail, Novell responded that ZenWorks does address this problem. The company said that a user can simply leave a Novell eDirectory login credential on the machine to log in the next time without creating a new desktop. But Novell corrected the previous e-mail on Sept. 11, admitting that user caching is not available in the latest version but would be included in a subsequent version.

That’s small comfort to Nickle, who has no way to deal with the problem in the interim and no idea how many months it might be until the next update. Especially since ZenWorks had this working in version 7 and then removed it in version 10.

“We are stuck,” he wrote. “We can either look for another product to manage our desktops” or stay with version 7, but version 7 doesn’t support Windows Vista, he said. Nickle suspects that “somebody just made a mistake,” and noted that other users in the ZenWorks forum have voiced the same complaint with just as much frustration.

Red Hat stonewalls on Microsoft interoperability plans

Novell Inc.’s recent coup of achieving bidirectional virtualization with Microsoft’s Hyper-V — SUSE Linux Enterprise can run as a guest on Hyper-V and Hyper-V on SUSE — is a huge step forward for interoperability.

Novell’s accomplishment begs for a response from Raleigh, N.C.-based Red Hat Inc., the largest open source vendor, which, publicly at least, has remained totally aloof from Microsoft, which, like it or not, has an overwhelming share of the server market.

So what’s Red Hat’s reaction? Is it going to use the Linux Integration Components that Novell and Microsoft created to boost performance between Linux and Microsoft virtualization platforms? These drivers and accessories are freely downloadable from Microsoft’s website.

What about cross-platform certification? Is Red Hat going to pursue certification through the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Platform to optimize Windows’ performance as a guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Finally, what are the implications for interoperability of Red Hat’s focus on the KVM hypervisor while the rest of the computing world (except for Ubuntu) is centered on Xen? Although Red Hat has pledged support for Xen until at least 2014, the thrust of its development efforts will be on KVM. And what happens after 2013? These are reasonable questions to ask of the leading open source vendor. Yet these questions went totally unanswered from mid-afternoon last Thursday until the following Monday morning. The answer: There would be no response. Total stonewalling.

According to a recent ZDNet article, Paul Cormier, Red Hat’s president of products and technologies, told a London press conference that Microsoft’s Hyper-V is targeting VMware. But that’s not the issue! The issue is: Is Red Hat going to become a Linux-only solution or is it going to reach some sort of accommodation with Microsoft?

I would really like to see Red Hat continue to thrive and gain market share on the giant from Redmond, Wash. Kick butt, even. So I hope that the reason for Red Hat’s evasion is not because Red Hat’s avoiding the interoperability issue but because Red Hat is in negotiations with Microsoft and can’t say anything until they’ve reached an agreement.

Only time will tell.

Strong Novell SUSE sales boost third quarter

Waltham, Mass.-based Novell Inc. reported solid revenue growth in its third-quarter earnings call yesterday, with net revenues of $245 million, up from $236 million for the second quarter of 2008 and from $237 million the third quarter of the previous year. Third-quarter operating profit this year was $1 million, compared to a $10 million operating loss the previous year.

Quarterly revenues from SUSE Linux were even stronger, however, with a 30% year-over-year growth, climbing from $25 million in the third quarter of 2007 to $32.5 million in the third quarter of 2008. Third-quarter SUSE revenues also were higher than the previous quarter’s revenues of $30.5 million. Despite the revenue gains, Novell racked up third-quarter losses of $15 million in 2008 and $4 million in 2007 due to charges from auction-rate securities and negative currency exchange rates, respectively.

Microsoft sales of SUSE certificates continue to increase throughout 2008, with $176 million or 73% of the $240 million agreement invoiced to date, according to Ian Bruce, Novell’s director of public relations. Microsoft is so far ahead of schedule in sales of the SUSE certificates, which it agreed to resell within five years of November 2006, that Microsoft recently agreed to buy up to an additional $100 million in SUSE certificates. Last year, Microsoft certificate sales gave a hefty boost to Novell revenues and boosted SUSE’s market share by 3% to 29% and Red Hat Inc.’s declined proportionately.

As Al Gillen, research vice president of system software at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC pointed out recently, the certificates give Microsoft an alternative product to offer customers who prefer Linux to Windows. And the paid-support certificates can convince customers to switch from free software to paid-support subscriptions, which “levels the playing field” with proprietary software, he said. Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian said he is “pleased” with the overall results, which he said affirms that the company is on the right strategic path and should achieve further growth and higher profit margins in 2009. Consulting services will continue to decline but product sales will increase, keeping the company on target to earn $940 million to $970 million by the end of the fiscal year, he said. Last year’s net revenues were $932 million.