Novell today announced it will acquire SuSE, one of the leading enterprise Linux companies, expanding Novell’s ability to provide enterprise-class services and support on the Linux platform. With the open source expertise of SuSE Linux and Novell’s world-class networking and identity solutions and support, training and consulting services, Novell will be able to deliver Linux and all its components –- from the server to the desktop. Press release can be found here. This isn’t the first news of these companies interoperating. Update: C|Net News has a nice round-up article on it too.
Novell to Acquire SuSE
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Adam Scheinberg
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One has to question what Novell’s intentions are with the acquisition.
Novell has had poor exection in the past. They went from being the standard in NOS and stayed stagnant and was surpassed by Windows. They literally stood still while MS improved their server software.
They had a whole office suite that they did nothing with other than rebadge it.
Unix is another story.
I wish them luck in their venture. jumping onto Linux is not necessarily a solution. They could have used BSD for millions of dollars less.
One has to question what Novell’s intentions are with the acquisition.
According to the conference call yesterday, they are planning to reduce barriers to Linux feasibility in the enterprise. Presumably they are doing this so they will have a standard linux desktop and server distribution to support. As of now, anyone with a support contract gets Red Hat and SUSE server support. They plan on taking advantage of their support resources in the Linux server market.
Novell has had poor exection in the past. They went from being the standard in NOS and stayed stagnant and was surpassed by Windows. They literally stood still while MS improved their server software.
You call moving from a bindery-based to directory-based management platform standing still? Do you call NSS, NDPS, iFolder, Branch Office, Netstorage and a continually evolving kernel with improved SMP support (among others things) standing still as well?
By the time MS released Active Directory to replace their inferior domain-based system, Novell had already perfected directory services and had moved on to bigger and better things (namely web and cross-platform integration services)
In terms of everything except market share, MS has been playing catch up with Novell for years.
They had a whole office suite that they did nothing with other than rebadge it.
And derive one of their best-selling products (Groupwise) from it.
Unix is another story.
Ray Noorda left years ago, to be replaced by others who are far more capable of running their business (Stone and Messman) No company, MS included, has a flawless track record.
I wish them luck in their venture. jumping onto Linux is not necessarily a solution. They could have used BSD for millions of dollars less.
That wouldn’t have been a very good move. Linux has more mindshare and marketshare than BSD. Commercial developers are more likely to produce applications for Linux, despite the merits of *BSD.
Jim