All Things Digital

In Sept. 1991, Microsoft exec Jim Allchin emailed CEO Bill Gates: “We must slow down Novell. As you said, Bill, it has to be dramatic. We need to slaughter Novell before they get stronger.” And in 2001 Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer likened Linux to “cancer.” Later that year, Gates derided open-source licensing models like the one used by Linux as “Pacman-like.”

That’s some heavy rhetoric. Certainly, it’s representative of the distaste with which Microsoft (MSFT) has viewed Linux and Linux vendors like Novell (NOVL) for the past decade.

So to hear back in Nov. 2006 that Microsoft was partnering with Novell to offer sales support for Novell’s SUSE Linux and cooperate with its old rival on Linux-Windows interoperability was astonishing–a bit like discovering that Stalin really sent Trotsky to Mexico for a nice vacation or that Itchy has shacked up with Scratchy.

And the unlikely partnership continues to astonish to this day. On Wednesday, the two companies expanded their interoperability agreement, with Microsoft agreeing to buy and resell up to $100 million in enterprise support subscriptions for Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server OS. That’s in addition to the $240 million Microsoft has already agreed to buy.

Odd, isn’t it, to see Microsoft marketing Linux like this? Odder still, to see Novell in an alliance with the company that hoped to “slaughter” it. So why did Novell agree to it? “Novell’s benefit is obvious, if not self-destructive,” Joe Wilcox explains over at Microsoft Watch. “The deal allows Novell to exist in the shadow of Windows Server, sustaining on its table scraps. Microsoft can offer customers that simply must have some Linux servers a sanctioned source for good tools ensuring interoperability with Windows Server.”

Really? Not according to Apple. At least not yet, anyway. The company appears to have denied the allegation to BusinessWeek. And certainly the bit of code that’s inspired all this speculation seems more proof-of-concept then anything else. Perhaps it’s a future reassurance for Apple’s (AAPL) new friends in the enterprise space.

{
    "Date Generated" = "2008-08-07 17:30:38 Etc/GMT";
    "BlackListedApps" = {
        "com.mal.icious" = {
            "Description" = "Being really bad!";
            "App Name" = "Malicious";
            "Date Revoked" = "2004-02-01 08:00:00 Etc/GMT";
        };
    };
}

com.mal.icious? “Description” = “Being really bad”? A 2004 revoke date?

With its curvier edges, stylish silver trim, half-VGA 480-by-320 pixel screen and improved iTunes compatibility, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) new BlackBerry Bold should be a big hit with IT operations professionals convinced the iPhone isn’t an enterprise-class mobile device but driven to near-aneurysm by discontented employees demanding them.

The device is largely as expected–an iPhonish-looking thing with both GPS and Wi-Fi, 1GB of permanent flash memory, a 2-megapixel camera, full HTML browsing, 3G support on GSM networks with HSDPA access and, of course, the BlackBerry’s one-trick killer app: instant, secure email. That’s a compelling combination for business users and casual ones not easily swayed by the iPhone’s hype juggernaut as well. Indeed, Citigroup analyst Jim Suva says it could boost RIM’s quarterly shipments by 200,000 to 400,000.

But perhaps not without a bit of struggle. The BlackBerry Bold won’t ship until as late as August, which means Apple (AAPL) could beat it to market with the enterprise-friendly 3G iPhone it’s rumored to be uncrating at its Worldwide Developer’s Conference in June. Which has got to worry RIM. After all, the first-generation iPhone had claimed a 28% market share by the fourth quarter of 2007. That’s still less than the BlackBerry, which holds about a 41% market share, but the iPhone hasn’t even been on the market a year.

Though Apple hasn’t yet unveiled, or perhaps even developed, its strategy for integrating the iPhone with business software systems in a way that won’t give IT executives aneurysms, its plans to bring the device to the enterprise market appear to be going quite well. This in spite of dubious security folk and leery analysts like Gartner’s Ken Dulaney who once said: “We’re telling IT executives to not support it because Apple has no intentions of supporting (iPhone use in) the enterprise. This is basically a cellular iPod with some other capabilities and it’s important that it be recognized as such.”

Thing is, Apple likely does intend to support the iPhone in enterprise, and even if it doesn’t, a lot of people plan to use it there anyway. According to new research from IDC, 70% of the people who own or are planning to buy an iPhone intend to use the device as a business tool. “The results of our poll suggest a preference for both personal and business usage among those that own or plan to purchase an iPhone in the next 12 months,” said Sean Ryan, research analyst for IDC’s Mobile Enterprise Device Solutions. “This coincides with a growing trend in the proliferation and uptake of other converged mobile devices designed to meet both the business and consumer requirements of mobile workers.”

Like it or not, the iPhone is being “user pushed” into the enterprise space. As Mark Blowers, senior research analyst at Butler Group, noted this past summer, “With remote working becoming more popular, there will be increasing pressure on the IT department to integrate a growing number of different mobile devices with the existing infrastructure. The iPhone could well be another BlackBerry that the IT manager will be compelled to adopt.”