ShadowRAM: August 18, 2003

Forgetting for a moment Novell's spotty record with takeovers (WordPerfect, anyone?), the deal might make sense if Novell is serious about getting back into the desktop arena,especially in light of SCO's finagling over legal rights to the Unix-based code.

We may not be the only ones catching wind of a proposed deal: Red Hat shares have jumped by about 12 percent since July 30.

IBM made a play for HP's VARs and customers at HP World last week. Red-shirted IBM folks passed out big Nestle's Crunch bars and party invites. IBM even dispatched a convoy of flatbed trucks toting huge signs touting the wonders of IBM's infrastructure. As part of the incentive to attend its party, IBM pledged to give away a Ford Mustang convertible. Still, with all the hoopla, only 54 people showed up.

IBM's presence at HP World prompted HP Services chief Ann Livermore to quip during her keynote, "It's a testimony to the fact that IBM is feeling some pressure from us."

It doesn't look as if Arnold Schwarzenegger will get much competition from the IT sector in his bid to replace Gray Davis as governor of California. National Semiconductor IS director Julie Wong, during a dry presentation explaining how solution provider Logical solved a thorny IT problem at National, interrupted her own speech by saying, "I'm not running for governor."

HP's big consumer products rollout last week came just after the vendor de-authorized hundreds of solution providers as warranty service providers on HP's Pavilion retail PCs.

In the week following the deauthorization on Aug. 1, one deauthorized solution provider said he had 25 requests for warranty work from small-business customers who bought HP retail systems. The solution provider had to refer irate customers back to Best Buy for service. As our source pointed out, large retail chains don't do service but instead act as warranty depots to ship products back to an HP authorized service center for repair or replacement. So much for the total customer experience.

Borland Software obtained AltoWeb's source code before the Java tools vendor went under earlier this year. Sources say Borland invested in AltoWeb in exchange for those source-code rights. Instead of helping the company stay afloat, our sources say Borland apparently thought the source code to AltoWeb software was reasonable payment to justify watching its investment close its doors. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there.