[NEWS] - Novell buys SuSe

[CougTek]

PROVO, Utah — Nov. 04, 2003 — Novell today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire SUSE LINUX, one of the world’s 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 – and give organizations a secure, reliable and mature Linux foundation. Novell will pay $210 million in cash to complete the acquisition. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and the winding up of shareholder agreements. Novell expects the transaction to close by the end of its first fiscal quarter (January 2004).

And it's not all...

Novell today also announced that IBM intends to make a $50 million investment in Novell convertible preferred stock.

Big Blue brother backs them up. Maybe Novell won't sink into oblivion like many predicted several times it would.

News source

 

[blakerwry]

I dont see why they paid so much money... isn't linux free? doesnt the GNU give them the ability to take a pre-existing product and then modify it to their needs and then republish that product under the GNU.

So.. if they wanted to start from scratch it would only require their team of *nix experts time to create something... if they wanted to start with something proven and reliable then they could just take a pre-existing product that is published under the GNU and then modify it and republish it under the GNU.

 

[Mercutio]

Their stock is up something like 40%, too.

The interesting thing to me is that Novell also owns Ximian. Ximian = GNOME desktop software (Sun's annointed replacement for CDE, among other things), while SuSE is essentially based on a KDE desktop.

Mixed message, that.

SuSE is a good choice. I like it better than Mandrake (which I run into regularly because my students with no Linux knowledge constantly try to install it) as a "desktop" Linux, which I think says a lot of good things about it.

 

[Buck]

I hope Novell can stick around and give Microsoft less room to grow.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

While linux, the kernel, may be free, the distributions themselves require much more work and I'm not sure about how 'free' they are from a licensing standpoint.

Either way, coming up to speed on a product/distribution in order to further development of that product/distribution is a real issue in terms of time and proficiency. So buying the company and getting the developers alleviates this issue.

 

[Mercutio]

I dont see why they paid so much money... isn't linux free? doesnt the GNU give them the ability to take a pre-existing product and then modify it to their needs and then republish that product under the GNU.

SuSE has some proprietary elements, like its installer (YaST), and a very large installed base, especially in Europe. Novell might well be buying customers. IMO RedHat might've been a better choice, although I'm sure it would've been more expensive.

I'm not a big fan of Novell. It's always seemed like an also-ran to me (despite my age I did do pretty serious work with Novell 3 and 4), even while it was the market-leading product. It just never did anything interesting.

These developments with Linux companies might be interesting, but if Novell continues to release its usual no-frills server software, this will be nothing but a tempest in a teacup.

 

[Buck]

These developments with Linux companies might be interesting, but if Novell continues to release its usual no-frills server software, this will be nothing but a tempest in a teacup.

That would be my biggest concern. The purchase of SuSe raises the expectations we have of Novell. Yet, if they can't deliver, not only will they ruin the Novell brand, but SuSe would fall from its present perch.

 

[Buck]

On another interesting Linux note:

inquirer
Red Hat to discontinue desktop support
By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 04 November 2003, 09:15

RED HAT has told its customers that it will no longer support a version of Linux for the desktop, signalling that it believes its enterprise products stand more chance of bringing in the shekels.The firm emailed its customers yesterday, saying that it will discontinue maintenance and errata support for RHL 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0 from December the 31st this year.

Support for RH Linux 9 will end on April 30th 2004, and the firm said it does not plan to introduce any more products in the Red Hat Linux line.

At the same time, RH said that it has a migration plan for network customers to move to Enterprise Linux V3.

Although some think that Red Hat might be shooting itself in the foot with the move, like we said we suspect that its close cooperation with IBM has helped it come to the decision.

And it's going to help the other Linux companies who are committed to desktop distributions.

 

[Mercutio]

http://fedora.redhat.com/

 

[Buck]

That clears things up a bit, thanks Merc.

 

[sechs]

Didn't Novell try the Linux schtick with a company now called SCO?

 

[Howell]

I have recently become more experienced in the administration of Netware (NW) 4 & 5 through NDS. In my opinion, this is where Novell stands out. They never sufficiently courted and therefor never sufficiently had developers to build products for the NW operating system (OS).

Considering the lack of enterprise management software available for *NIX, I have considered Novell's best chance for survival NDS for *NIX. I have never been terribly familiar with low-level configuration of the NW OS and the fact that it was a #3 server OS and different from the rest lended motivation to not learn it in depth. Now that they have an OS with an already installed developer base they should do much better. They should concentrate on selling NDS for *NIX to the large corps and SUSE to the smaller shops.

BTW, Some believe SUSE to have the best out-of-the-box (OOTB) preserved-tree documentation.

PS, all that said Novell really needs to clean up its support infrastructure. Its after-hours support really stinks.

 

[SteveC]

On another interesting Linux note:

inquirer
Red Hat to discontinue desktop support
By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 04 November 2003, 09:15

RED HAT has told its customers that it will no longer support a version of Linux for the desktop, signalling that it believes its enterprise products stand more chance of bringing in the shekels.The firm emailed its customers yesterday, saying that it will discontinue maintenance and errata support for RHL 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0 from December the 31st this year.

Support for RH Linux 9 will end on April 30th 2004, and the firm said it does not plan to introduce any more products in the Red Hat Linux line.

At the same time, RH said that it has a migration plan for network customers to move to Enterprise Linux V3.

Although some think that Red Hat might be shooting itself in the foot with the move, like we said we suspect that its close cooperation with IBM has helped it come to the decision.

And it's going to help the other Linux companies who are committed to desktop distributions.

Red Hat's Chief Executive: Stick with Windows at Home