suse

Whispers...Red Hat had first dibs on buying SUSE

In an attempt to turn this blog into a gossip rag, I'm going to "start" posting unsubstantiated (Meaning, true or almost certainly true but with sources that I can't reveal) rumors. Fiction is always more fun. :-)

In this case, however, it's the truth. First in line to acquire SUSE back in the day was...Red Hat. Matthew Szulik decided to pass on the opportunity and, well, the rest is history. Ironic, isn't it? With whom would Microsoft have done its patent deal had Novell not been around? Would Ubuntu have started sooner to … Read more

Ubuntu tops the Open Source Census with 46 percent

The Open Source Census rolls forward, but I'm not sure how far it has gone as yet. In the summary, it shows just 789 machines scanned (as of the time that I read it). That's not a bad start, but it is just a start. As such, it's hard to read much into the data.

To be more representative, it will need to get more responses from those employed by larger companies. With just 22 percent of respondents employed by a company with more than 1,000 people, it's clear that the Census skews toward SMBs (small and midsize businesses, with an emphasis on the "S").

It will also need a more representative geographic spread. For example, France, which always shows up as second or third, in terms of open-source adoption in every open-source survey I've seen, apparently doesn't even scrape 2 percent of participants. The United Kingdom, by contrast, is third, behind Canada, despite its dismal commercial open-source penetration.

So the data appears to be highly imperfect, but it will get better as more participate.

The data on Ubuntu's amazing adoption, however, is nigh impossible to dispute, looking at the data.… Read more

Microsoft and Novell: Exonerating Chinese piracy?

I will admit, I am laughing as I type this. The news that Microsoft and Novell are taking their interoperability roadshow to China is hilarious on a number of different levels.

How much do you think that China cares about U.S. patents? It has been pirating Microsoft's Windows for years (though at least, in theory, new PCs don't ship with pirated Windows)--and now suddenly it's concerned about making sure it has patent protection for Linux? My mirth runneth over.

"We are very pleased with the original approach by Microsoft and Novell to address our concerns about deploying and managing a complex high-performance computing infrastructure across two platforms. It is essential for our future competitiveness and success," Nie Hua, vice president of Chinese company Dawning Information Industry, said in Microsoft and Novell's Sunday night press release. "We fully understand the concerns surrounding intellectual property rights and feel reassured that these issues have been addressed by our vendors."

I bet! I suspect Nie Hua was crying himself to sleep at night before Microsoft and Novell approached him with this. You can just imagine his fretting: "How will I deal with the uncertainty of Linux's intellectual property position unless Microsoft, which has attempted to introduce the uncertainty, blesses my Linux distribution?" Give me a break.

Still, I give Novell credit here. Why?… Read more

Ubuntu and the coming Linux popularity contest

It's just a matter of time before Ubuntu is crowned "enterprise ready" by one of the major ISVs. Will it be able to maintain its popularity once it is popular with enterprise buyers?

Ubuntu plays an increasingly important role within the larger Linux market. According to a new white paper from IDC [PDF], Linux is big business and is ready for prime time, with IDC forecasting overall spending on hardware, software, and services for Linux to increase 25.2 percent annually through 2011, particularly at the expense of Unix:

Increasingly, deployments of the Linux server operating system are expanding from infrastructure-oriented workloads to more commercially-oriented workloads such as database, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and other general business processing, workloads that historically have been the domain of Microsoft Windows and Unix. Where once Linux was seen by customers primarily as a low-cost infrastructure solution, it is now increasingly viewed as a solution for wider and more critical business deployments.

The question in my mind is therefore, "Which of the big-three Linux vendors is going to dominate the market?" Red Hat is the obvious first choice, but I think there's a serious spoiler in the Linux market, and its name is Ubuntu.… Read more

Novell's big day with Sesame Street and HP

Novell's Brainshare is in full swing, and the company announced two significant deals. The first is that Hewlett-Packard will be preloading Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop on select laptops and desktops. It's a big coup for Novell after Ubuntu scored with Dell. It's also a big coup for customers who won't have to go through the bother of maintaining Linux on incompatible hardware, as I recently did with Ubuntu on Lenovo's X61 laptop.

Novell also scored with Sesame Street Workshop. This isn't a huge revenue generator but it's a fun deal. Sesame … Read more

SAP, Intel, and Novell team up for ERP appliance: What's the end game?

SAP announced today its ERP-in-a-box solution, based on Novell's SUSE Linux and Intel processors. It sounds like a cool solution (though why this would be more appealing than SAP's SaaS offering, I don't know). It's yet another proof point that SAP and the global ERP vendors see the SME market as the future...which is right where open source offerings like Openbravo and Compiere compete best.

Through the optimization work it did with Intel and the right combination of software, including SUSE Linux, SAP aims to provide customers with a 45% savings on implementation and a 25% savings on total cost of ownership over what they'd typically spend for a comparable hardware/software combo, said Jans Peter Klaey, president of global SME at SAP, in an interview.

One interesting (and hitherto unasked) question is why SAP would have done this deal with the distant second-place Linux distribution, SUSE, instead of with Linux frontrunner, Red Hat?… Read more

Novell responds to my acquisition questions

I appreciate that John Dragoon, Novell's CMO commented on my post about the company's recent acquisitions. Had I read his blog earlier I probably would have had more insight. And really, I have no desire to pick on Novell...it's just an easy target :>

The fact that John took the time to address this is an example of high-quality, new-school marketing. If you are not part of the conversation you are irrelevant.

The post is here, the full comment below for your reading pleasure.

Dave, Allow me to offer my perspective on your opinions on our … Read more

Open-Xchange aims for U.S. expansion

Open-Xchange is using Yahoo's acquisition of rival Zimbra last year as an invitation to tackle the U.S. market with its open-source server software for e-mail, calendars, and other collaboration tools.

"Now is the time. The vacuum has been created, and we feel the suction," said Rafael Laguna de la Vera, who took over as chief executive in January. "Yahoo is not a software company...Now, with Microsoft (trying to acquire Yahoo), I think it's over for Zimbra."

Those are bold words for a CEO of an unprofitable company with 2007 revenue of $2.… Read more

Novell upgrades its SUSE marketing and community

Joe Brockmeier, editor-in-chief of Linux.com, has left the world of Linux evangelism to join the world of...Linux evangelism. However, instead of doing so as the "neutral" voice of a journalist he'll have a bit of an OpenSUSE slant this time around as the OpenSUSE community manager..

And that's just fine.

I've long respected Joe and think this is a good move for Novell, which seems to have a predilection for the analyst and journalist community that covers it. (It hired Bill Claybrook from Aberdeen a few years ago.) One of Novell's core problems in the past two years has been a lack of vocal DNA that will focus on the value of Linux, rather than the value of shacking up with Microsoft. Joe isn't a zealot but he also knows which side his open-source bread is buttered on.

Indeed, he noted that his goal is to help move people from Windows to Linux, rather than from Linux to Linux (which is an unfortunate fetish of other areas of the company):… Read more

Novell names new OpenSuse liaison

Novell has hired Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier to be community manager of its OpenSuse Linux project, the company said Monday.

OpenSuse is a free Linux version Novell uses to test out new features it puts into its supported product, Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server. Brockmeier, who has written about open-source software for many technical publications in recent years, will work on OpenSuse marketing, expanding its developer and user base, and on relaying community feedback to Novell, the Waltham, Mass.-based company said.

On his blog, Brockmeier said he wants to use his position to attract Windows users to … Read more