Novell Announces Agreement to Acquire SUSE 672
Mickey Hill writes "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. Novell expects the transaction to close by the end of its first fiscal quarter (January 2004). This latest move follows Novell's August purchase of Ximian."
First p0st! (Score:1, Interesting)
Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
Good old Novell (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:First p0st! (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe they will combine Ximian and SuSE into 2 different product offerings: SuSE, and SuSE Plus (for example). Regardless, it's clear that Novell is trying to realign themselves under Linux.
The Wedge Gets Deeper (Score:4, Interesting)
In short, "The plot thickens."
Great timing with respect to Red Hat moves (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The pressing issue: (Score:3, Interesting)
This sounds interesting for two reasons. I bet that Jack Messman and Chris Stone decided to play a little hardball with IBM. Basically, back us in this or we go ahead and tell SCO to sue them without our intervention using the UNIX rights that we retained.
The second cool thing is that all of a sudden there is a viable alternative to the Red Hat evil empire. I would bet that Novell/Suse arent going to piss off all the developers like Red Hat has done.
When you combine Novell's base with Suse's mind share and the momentum of Linux, WOW!!!!!
KDE? (Score:5, Interesting)
Novell apparently is more interested in the Connector than the Ximian desktop, and more interested in SuSE's servers than its desktop offerings. However, SuSE has been a huge backer of the KDE project and Ximian is the home of Gnome. It'll certainly be interesting to see how the Novell management allocates their resources going forward, won't it?
Re:First p0st! (Score:1, Interesting)
Indeed (Score:3, Interesting)
Suse on the Desktop, RedHat on the Server? (Score:2, Interesting)
funnily enough, i was thinking "oh, interesting. that leaves someone to pickup and seriously evolve the desktop platform if they decided not to concentrate on the server environment". then i refreshed slashdot and saw this SUSE news!
personally i think this is terrific. novell have excellent experience in the enterprise market from NetWare and their directory services. hopefully they can start to penetrate the desktop.
it sounds to me as if RH will find its place in the "appliance" market for such things as storage, web applications and security (system infrastructure) and SUSE/Novell will be well positioned for user-based infrastructure such as directory services, groupware and the desktop.
Looks like the war is over (Score:5, Interesting)
While this move is good for Novell, and good for the community, it has taken way to long in coming. This is partly due to the fact that if Novell HAD gone with Linux three years ago, they would have been the major supplier of the OS right off the bat for IBM, with IBM offering Linux based servers and caching boxes. When Novell dropped the ball, IBM pulled out.
Another point to make here is what this will do in relationship to SCO. You may well remember the piece a few weeks ago that talked about a statement that Novell made, quietly at the time, that the license that SCO had to sell licenses to UNIX came from them. I would expect a major blowup from SCO in the next few weeks, though do not be suppressed if Canopy decides to kill SCO outright and take the tech into Netware Linux. Canopy waffles more then Clinton at a beach party.
One other point...I have NEVER seen a machine serve as fast as a Linux box controlling files that are on Netware partitions. Say what you want about Netware being owned, but with the 2.4 kernel and multi-threading issues resolved (another reason why Novell was very hesitant to go with a 2.2 kernel based system) I would expect to see something really good from them in near future.
No RedHat 10 and now SuSE aquired by Novell? (Score:1, Interesting)
RHL like a rock (even if most of us knew it
was comming). I think RedHat will lose their
brand recognition with the masses (boxed sets,
inexpensive downloads, here, try RH 8 or 9, etc.).
Maybe they'll make more on the enterprise version,
but at what cost.
Meanwhile, SuSE gets aquired by an entrenched
Novell (still a $1B US company). Novell has
customers, support, and name recognition. They
have a large customer base (still). If they go
after the space vacated by RH 9, what will that
do to RedHat?
Yes, I know, Fedora. However, Fedora is NOT
RedHat Linux. Even though it is under the hood,
the PHB's of the world won't see it that way
without massive re-education. Add in the
SCO factor....
These two announcements could indicate a massive
shift in the Linux community.
Will the EU let it happen? (Score:3, Interesting)
Can anyone answer this for me: (Score:3, Interesting)
I can only remember seeing Novell products in less than a handful of places-- and it was in the process of being removed in those places.
SO-- Does anybody know where is Novell getting the capital to keep gobbling up companies? It seems like every time I turn around there's a story about Novell buying X...
If Novell's doing so well, maybe there's an investment opportunity hiding somewhere in there...
Directory Services? (Score:3, Interesting)
"a company with no future" (Score:5, Interesting)
What about the exchange killer (Score:1, Interesting)
Novell has been playing with putting their Novell Directory system on Linux (as well as their other stuff - i.e. groupwise)
q1) Will this mean that SUSE's groupware client is dead?
q2) will this mean there will be a directory enabled printing method for linux clients?
Linux Consolidation Begins (Score:2, Interesting)
Another Novell screw-up coming? (Score:5, Interesting)
Vs. Microsoft this is a tricky move, because I think even the Bush Justice Dept would look very hard at Microsoft entering the Linux market.
But historically, Novell has thrown away every technology and market advantage they have ever held, and handed their business on a silver platter to Microsoft (and maybe Sun). So does this mean Novell will now screw up SuSE, whose distribution I like a lot?
sPh
WEll now its time. (Score:3, Interesting)
It might be time for all of you to jump back on RH's bandwagon after you realize they're the only ones you cant buy out.
forgive my pessimism, I should give Novell a shot but they appear to be a company evolving to stay alive in the free software movement, but is thier goal a GPL world while making money, or trying to make money in a GPL world? Personally i think redhat is the former, Novell the latter.
Re:First p0st! (Score:1, Interesting)
As for KDE versus the GNOME thing, neither of them are going away, but I could see Novell making Ximian's products integrate better with KDE.
branding (Score:3, Interesting)
Check out the third paragraph too... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now that is a very interesting [sco.com] number indeed!
And I think it sends a very powerful message to all those businesses out there that are succumbing to the SCO FUD (hey can we shorten that to SCUD!). IBM are basically putting their money where they're mouth is to show their confidence in the future of Linux. Nice one.
Re:Holy shit! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Congrats... Linux is now Dead. (Score:3, Interesting)
Novell, tread very carefully, please. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been using SuSE in the office since v7, and for my money it's the only distro I'll touch because it's easily the most advanced one on the market and I can get excellent technical support for it any time I need it (which isn't often, but in business you absolutely must have the security blanket). I'm going to be quite pissed off (and switching vendors) if this changes because of Novell's influence.
Don't be dense and stop offering it for free like Redhat did, either (Fedora is not RedHat, different discussion entirely, see Redhat thread for discussion ad nauseum about this). It's a boneheaded move on so many levels. Nobody's saying you need to support the downloaded version (or even host it for free, people will mirror it after all), as long as you continue to release it so folks can get their hands dirty and get comfortable on the product without having to pay for it first. Using it for free for a time was the only way I could convince folks here to pay for it, and they did gladly once they saw how good SuSE is at doing its job.
Keep the Novell-ized components optional, please. Some of us aren't using Novell technology, and it's going to be very annoying if we have to install NDS and Novell client software even though we have no intention of using them. Keep the Novell additions optional, not mandatory. You'll need to lure us into using them by quality. I still remember the days when Novell had a good product. Hopefully that can happen again.
First Redhat... now SuSE. Tomorrow, Debian and Slackware will anounce a merger citing similar goals. I'm sure Thursday Mandrake will be bought out by Microsoft, followed by Linus selling the Linux trademark to SCO on Friday. Saturday we'll see Apple acquire all the rights to FreeBSD, and Sunday the world will simply end. After a week like that, most of us probably wouldn't mind.
Re:KDE? (Score:5, Interesting)
Novell wants to be an end to end solution, from desktop to server to management. He sees Novell's earlier failure stemming from two problems: no developer support and no desktop offering (DR-DOS did not compete with Windows). He sought to rectify the first problem by buying SilverStream, but that wasn't enough. Give him credit for understanding that the real movement is in Open Source and not J2EE. Thus it also made sense to buy Ximian and instantly acquire an open source development base. Next, Novell needed a Linux distro. Again, to his credit, they bought one instead of developing their own. Now, Novell has to tie all of those pieces together.
What does Novell bring to open source/Linux/etc? A large support, developmnent, and sales organization. Despite the declining marketshare of Netware, there are still many, many enterprises running on Netware and/or using Novell products. Novell's products are not as visible, simply because they're mostly infrastructure. How many people run eDirectory on their desktops? But, how many companies use it for authentication? Novell's taking a different course than IBM and, thus, stands a chance.
Re:Can anyone answer this for me: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hmm (Score:0, Interesting)
think closed-source. and desktop. stuff like usb camera drivers, video drivers, mb drivers, all that stuff that came with a redhat rpm only. now there's no more redhat on the desktop (read their conference references, they explicitly said they're no longer interested in the desktop exactly because of these driver things - and most if not all linux closed-source drivers were available as redhat rpms). what incentive will there be for hw manufacturers to do closed-source drivers for debian? and no, don't tell me about 'closed source is bad', i already know that. but when there's no hacked in (and usually worse anyway) alternative, then the mantra doesn't really work now, does it?
here's for the hope that novell will keep the desktop part of suse at least as free as it is now.
Canny timing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus, Novell is another company with a lot of "history" with Microsoft, so I don't know which is going to be more enjoyable; watching Novell's posturing with Microsoft, or watching them kick SCO from here to the SEC's offices. Either way, I'm sure it is going to be "entertaining, in a Jerry Springer kind of way." ;)
Novell acclaims the open source (Score:2, Interesting)
"Novell expands its open source commitment "
"... acquisitions affirm Novell's commitment to promoting the open source model and developer community. "
"Responding to customer demands for open, standards-based computing, Novell has been dedicated to a cross-platform vision for four years now, and Linux is an increasingly important part of that strategy,"
"Novell understands the power of open, standards-based computing, and has been moving in that direction for some time,"
"we're looking forward to joining forces to help customers gain the benefits of Linux and to help Novell continue to expand its role in the open source community."
"SUSE LINUX
"... provide a powerful business network to promote more rapid Linux adoption around the globe. "
"Beyond the technology, the acquisition will also expand Novell's strategic commitment to the open source community. "
"Novell is firmly committed to open standards and maintaining the existing open source kernel development efforts."
"From advocacy and development resources to events and support of open source efforts like kernel projects, XFree86, ReiserFS, KDE, GNOME and Mono, Novell stands side-by-side with the open source community. "
Serious misgivings. (Score:5, Interesting)
Somehow, I do not think that we are seeing the big picture.
Re:The pressing issue: (Score:5, Interesting)
This will play out to be very interesting. (Score:4, Interesting)
Now Novell has also acquired SuSE, the number two vendor and alternative to the now defuct Red Hat Linux, which is also an RPM distribution but, uses a different update service.
Novell, looking to increase revenue, is unlikely to offer much in the arena of free services and is also unlikely to expend much effort supporting a distribution that is not their own, as SuSE now is. So, one is left wondering what the landscape will look like in the coming months.
Will Ximian's Red Carpet survive at all and if so, will it support the Red Hat distro or the SuSE distro or both? Will Novell/SuSE continue to develop using the KDE desktop or will they more likely shift SuSE to use the Ximian Desktop? Will SuSE, who had historically been somewhat "less free" than Red Hat, become even more "less free" with its acquisition by Novell?
Any which way it goes, the Linux landscape will change dramatically in the next few months, as it has in the past few weeks. One can't help but wonder if there will be a truely free Linux left with all of the commercial activity of late. Fortunately, Debian continues as it always has, at least for now.
Scorecard (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps a review of previous Novell acquisitions is in order...
None of these is currently a market leader. Perhaps RedHat ought not to shut the doors just yet.
Suse or Red Hat? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is Novell in a better position to float a free, prosumer/hobbyist version of Linux to support their paying enterprise Linux product than was Red Hat?
Does this mean that we are now more likely to see SUSE on the hobbyist desktop vs. Red Hat? I guess it depends if Novell plans to release a consumer grade version of SUSE for free--and it's too early to tell if that's going to be the case. But there's now a "hobbyist/prosumer" niche to be filled, and IMHO whoever fills that position is much more likely to be recommended for server grade Linux, also. You recommend what you're familiar with--and if we can bang against SUSE for free on our closet boxes, when a PHB asks for a Linux recommendation, I think we are much more likely to recommend SUSE. Regardless of the technical differences/advantages, since it's always better to go with "the devil you know."
Sounds like we have another standard bearer, folks, which actually underscores the strength of Linux--any number of companies can offer the product, since it's owned-at-large, regardless of the travails of a company in particular. If Red Hat had been the sole proprietor of Linux, their stopping support for the consumer version could very well have been the end of the line of Linux on the desktop--but inasmuch as it's open source, another company is able to fill the breach.
What this means for SCO is better left to other threads, I think. But I would've liked to see their faces--and I'm glad I'm not a SCO customer (or distributor). Can Novell revoke SCO's license to UNIX? hehee.
It's about time! (Score:4, Interesting)
As a long time Novell admirer and CNE (installed my first NetWare LAN in 1986/87, certified in 1992, sigh), I've watched them struggle for years, most times in dismay.
First it was Ray Noorda's determination to beat Microsoft by buying Wordperfect Corporation, DRI and USL. The potential was there, but Microsoft was far too entrenched by that point.
Then it was their poor marketing (renaming NetWare to IntranetWare for a short time, for example), and nearly 10 years of "wandering" around the networking landscape as Microsoft's marketing machine went into high gear and its networking became "good enough" for business use.
Now it seems as though they are back on track. They started awhile ago, by emphasizing network services over the NOS.
With NDS, a stable and mature cross-platform directory service (yeah, yeah, it has its problems - tell me Active Directory doesn't?)and a good Linux distribution obtained through this purchase, they have the potential to challenge Microsoft's dominance in the desktop arena, and slow or even stop their encroachment upon the server space as well.
They have the tools already (NDS and ZENWorks among others); if they can create a transparent network management environment that doesn't depend on any particular OS/NOS, but allows them all to be centrally managed, and encompasses the desktop as well, they will have accomplished something
unique, and will be the first company to do so.
It's about large networks, and the ability to choose best-of breed products regardless of OS and be able to integrate them, and support them, to provide services to the users.
In short, it *is* about the network, and it is all connected.
Desktop PC hardware is already a commodity. Server class hardware is rapidly becoming so - the next step in the evolution of networking isn't at the "nuts and bolts" level, it is "above" the network.
Just my opinion.
dj
Re:KDE? (Score:3, Interesting)
With the combined experience of Ximian and SUSE, Novell could create a very cool desktop.
But even if they dump the desktop offerings (as you suggest they might do) there would still be a bright side. With SUSE and Red Hat finally out of the desktop niche, Mandrake would have an opportunity to fill their shoes.
Of course, I'm assuming there's money in it.
Now two serious alternatives for corporate desktop (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Try debian (Score:3, Interesting)
Not at all... (Score:1, Interesting)
IBM doesn't depend upon Novell in order to win their lawsuit. Their lawyers are confident they can win it anyway.
As for Red Hat being evil, I have no idea where you got that stupid little idea. Perhaps you pulled it of your very own stupid little head.
High-quality hardware supplier = IBM or Sun ? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Buy the Linux desktop company with the Outlook replacement solution.
2. Buy the world's second leading Linux distro with its excellent LSB-compliant base and its Exchange replacement solution.
3. Add own directory service, networking and workgroup products.
4. Buy former leader in high-performance UNIX hardware with its solid experience of Linux porting.
5. ???
6. Proffit?
/me sends CV to local Novell branch office...
Re:Serious misgivings. (Score:4, Interesting)
2) To say that the Novell - SCO relations are "frosty" now would understate the picture
3) I don't see that Ray "lost control" over Novell, but rather that he gave it up so that the company could grow up and move along. Novell has certainly had a bad few years, but that cash-flow from NetWare 3.x, 4.x, 5.x and 6.x licenses has lasted a LOT longer than I imagined it would back in '95.
The company is pretty transparent, right now...we're doing Linux because that's where we see the business opportunity, and where we can leverage our deep, deep skills and experience running global customer support operations, among other things.
Any Good Coming From This? (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't say I really care one way or the other about this.
Novell has been quite stagnant for a while. Thankfully they realized that they needed a shot in the arm in order to expand their increasingly legacy user base. But have they done anything interesting? Will they be a contributing member of the community? Why should I get excited about Novell?
Then you have SuSE. I've used the distribution quite a bit. More often than not for their Live CD to do rescues. It's an ok distribution - it definitely has more software than any other distro and the book they provide is excellent. But again, it's not that interesting of a distro. It's just enough of a pain in the ass to use to not be enjoyable.. unless you think Slackware combined with RPM's is cool or you enjoy finding random documentation written in German.
Can someone please tell me something I don't know that will make me care about two also-rans?
Re:Novell, tread very carefully, please. (Score:4, Interesting)
SuSE's whole distro is currently set up like a massive warehouse of goodies, and you just tag the ones you want during install and that's it. The packages are all fairly current (even bleeding edge for some of KDE), and they've all been tested to work together, and there are precious few things that aren't included. The documentation included with the packages is also excellent. I don't mind Novell adding things to the warehouse, I'm concerned they'll want to change the whole warehouse concept into something worse, or excise any competeing technology that's already in the warehouse.
Re:The pressing issue: (Score:2, Interesting)
You know: "Our desktop version is now called "RedHat Fedora". It is only available for free, but it doesn't come with commercial support."
Sounds different, but it's basically the same thing as they are doing now.
(I know the blurb: RedHat-sponsored... comunity-supported... not a supported RedHat product... but a little more attention for Fedora in their communication, and keeping the RedHat brand name might have been wiser)
Re:Novell basically acquired Suse for free... (Score:3, Interesting)
And assumming they have plans for SUSE besides liquidating the company, it was a great bargain.
just my
jeff
Re:Holy shit! (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not exactly a novice at programming, or designing user interfaces, or writing back-end code that doesn't suck. But I've yet to find a simple, easy-to-understand GUI environment to develop shiny, lickable user interfaces, and link the interface to code underneath.
Microsoft may be the whipping-boy for monopolistic practices, but if you want to write "BeeKeeper Ranching and Honey Tracking," it doesn't take a genius to fire up Visual Studio and get a prototype interface to show to PHB-types. A little more work, and you have an almost workable prototype. Apple has gotten better with their offerings for OS X, and CodeWarrior tried to make it easy for cross-platform development. Other than a designing a web interface and tying it to a back-end language, is there a similar programming environment for X?
I know it's not a Novell-specific rant. But seeing the complaints about people not hacking out vertical applications for Linux without pointing out a development environment in which it's possible just makes me angry.
It's easy to teach/learn text-based programming languages to students, it's easy to teach/learn GUI programming with Visual Studio, it's somewhat more difficult to teach/learn GUI using Interface Builder. What do I use to teach/learn GUI programming on Linux/XWindows?
Re:This will play out to be very interesting. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a fan of novell really, but maybe this will change... It will be interesting to see how they handle liscensing, how proprietary they keep their software, so on and so forth.
Codeweavers should be next (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Kiss of Death (Score:1, Interesting)
Novell are indeed moving to a model where the NetWare Product Suite will be able to run on either a Linux based kernel or traditional Novell "NCP" kernel. This is NetWare 7 and released next year.
I suggest people check out Novell's web site to get the full details.
Re:Kiss of Death (Score:2, Interesting)
Perfect Office was rivaling MS Office 6 / Office 95 when Novell sold it to Corel. Corel managed to screw up the Word Perfect / Quattro Pro suite of applications just like it screwed up its Linux distro. Corel sank WP.
This is huge. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll paraphrase a post someone made on another website, "What company is going to think twice about their Linux suppliers viability when that company is Novell (with a touch of IBM thrown in)?". I think this will work out very, very, well for Novell as Linux makes it's way out from the server room onto the desktop.
What about Munich? (Score:2, Interesting)
They're probably wishing they took Ballmers offer now.
More Efficient for local networks? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re: bad news for KDE ! (Score:2, Interesting)
Buy recommendation for Y2K4: Novell/Google.
This is getting interesting.
Full Circle for Novell (Score:2, Interesting)
This is during the same period when Microsoft was cementing its monopoly in the desktop market and preparing for the release of Windows 95. What a different world it might have been if we had succeeded (or been allowed to succeed)!
I think this is a good move for Novell, but I can't help think it would have been even better if they had continued executing on a project started over 10 years ago in the same direction.
Hindsight is 20/20.