Nonetheless, it's going to be tough for Novell to get back into IT shops. The vendor hopes to take advantage of anti-monoculture sentiment by offering operating-system competition and global Linux experience at the same time. Nugent says Novell will seek customers who want to avoid vendor lock-in; target the large-enterprise market segment that needs more power and reliability than Windows offers; revitalize Novell's partner network; and ship product on time.
Novell has one thing on its side, or against it, depending on whom you believe: The company claims it owns the Unix source-code copyrights. If Novell is right, SCO's much-publicized vendetta against Linux--which started a year ago, when SCO filed a lawsuit alleging that some parts of Linux were lifted from Unix--shouldn't pose a problem.
In fact, Novell is so confident, it's offering "litigation indemnity" to customers who buy its Linux solutions. However, SCO recently dragged Novell into the ring "for its alleged bad-faith effort to interfere with SCO's rights with respect to Unix and UnixWare," according to an SCO press release. SCO has asserted that it, not Novell, owns the copyrights.
Although the quick-to-change nature of open source makes it unlikely that SCO will win the legal battle, there's no telling for sure what the outcome will be. Be that as it may, Novell is the Linux player in the best position with regard to the SCO litigation because of its copyright assertions, countersuits notwithstanding.
Novell has set its sights on customers that want to escape the single-vendor cycle of installations, upgrades and end of life. "The feedback we keep getting is that there are customers who don't want to be locked into any vendor, no matter who it is," Nugent says.
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