IBM And Intel Help Rescue SuSE From Insolvency

mutantcamel writes: "A report on NetworkFusion states that SuSE has avoided insolvency thanks to a fresh round of investment that raised $45.5 million for the ailing company. IBM and Intel are among the players that have announced their support for the company. The rescue package comes after quite a turbulent time at SuSE HQ, but the company seems optimistic about the future."

Comments

I bet

[aufecht]

"The rescue package comes after quite a turbulent time at SuSE HQ, but the company seems optimistic about the future."

I'd be pretty optimistic too if someone raised 45.5 million for my company. But seriously, why SuSE?

Re:I bet

[Eloquence]

Making money with SuSE would be desirable for IBM, but it is not the reason they have invested in them. It is a strategic investment, with the goal of keeping a good European Linux distribution alive. IBM's business with Linux will be in the system-making, everything from the hardware to the software (proprietary applications on the basis of an open-source OS) to the support. From their perspective, promoting Linux as a platform is much better than promoting Windows since, if Linux takes off, they cannot be forced to accept any Microsoft standards or solutions (especially since Microsoft can basically kill any IBM software solution by bundling it with their OS). On the other hand, should Windows take over the server market, IBM might face a grim future under Microsoft rule. So their engagement for Linux is strategically very clever, and has nothing to do with SuSE in particular, although IBM would obviously not allow certain decisions by SuSE where their own markets are concerned. Expect products that compete with IBM solutions to disappear from the distro.

My brother in law

[SquadBoy]

works for Intel. They use a lot of Linux there. ~%90 of his work is done on a Linux box. They really like the idea of not being tied to microsoft in the server room. I just really wish that we had an Exchange Killer then I could start converting my clients to pure Linux environments. That would be cool.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop?

[wrinkledshirt]

I'm just wondering if anybody else is hating the fact that they might have to start liking Intel because of this.

Meanwhile at SuSe..

[CaffeineAddict2001]

$45 Million is a truely disturbing ammount. Now is the time on sprockets when we dance.

Debian?

[Webmonger]

Is there a good reason you don't mention debian? It is the choice of Taco et al. . .

re: IBM And Intel Help Rescue SuSE From Insolvency

[emissary47]

i suspected that SuSE was in trouble, glad that the are saved.
i'm using SuSE for a very long time and i like the distribution.

the future of SuSE seems to be good:
look here
and here

SuSE has put much effort into supporting development of open source projects like, kde, alsa, reiserfs, ...
hopefully the future will be better for SuSE, if they go, it will be a lost for the open source community.

Enlightened self-interest

[Mr_Huber]

This is the perfect example of the sort of corporate altruism I think we can expect to see over the next few years. As some people have pointed out, SuSE is one of the most popular European Linux distributions. It is in IBM and Intel's best interest to ensure that there is are a few solid European based distributions around for them to build their business on. It avoids vendor lock to a particular distro (Red Hat anyone?). It maintains a company doing the tricky task of localizing the bulk of Linux. Plus, that shop may later be used to help localize IBM software at a later date.

All and all, it is in IBM and Intel's best interest to have a thriving SuSE (and Mandrake, for that matter), regardless of whether the company is actually profitable. This sort of enlightened self-interest could lead to a sort of patronage system for some of the major Linux distributors.

Sooo many cookies!

[Rocky Mudbutt]

NWFusion.com tried to forcefeed me 32 cookies to read the article, I think I have indigestion.

Would anyone save Loki?

[Wolfier]

Hm...only 1 or 2 millions would do...IBM, please?

Re:Article does not say a whole lot.

[scotpurl]

1. SuSE is big in Europe (posted above).
2. SuSE actually bundles Lotus Domino server (IBM owns Lotus), if you want it, for Linux. see http://www.suse.com/us/products/index.html
3. It also support DB2, and comes bundled (but RedHat does that, too).
4. Oh, and you can buy an S/390 version.
5. They contributed a lot to various Linux projects, especially Matrox video drivers (but that's my personal bias).

I tried RedHat in the beginning, and then I tried SuSE. I found SuSE to be better, smoother implimentation of Linux, and I found the YAST sysadmin tool to be great at reminding me where to find things (transitioning from OSF/1 and AIX). Plus my hardware was never fully supported in RedHat, but it was in SuSE (which never made sense to me).

Plus, I find it easier to rally behind the bad rendering of a cartoonish gecko than to rally behind a hat. (I mean, if we're talking kewl logos....)

Maybe it would have been better if they died

[Ur@eus]

Hate to say it, but it might have been better if they had gone under. It would have increased the chance of other companies like Mandrake and Red Hat making good profits. This new investment to keep Suse alive might just help cement a situation with no real moneymaking distro's.

Re:Maybe it would have been better if they died

[henley]

This is a very partisan approach to the issue. Success for Linux in the market place is not tied to the financial success of it's most well-known distro. It may not even be linked to RedHat's success.

I also believe you have mis-understood the fundamental premise on which one company may choose to support another. Let's take a worked example:

IBM is a global IT provider. And it has a very strong presence in non-US markets. It may surprise you to find that those markets have different requirements to the US. In particular, support for other languages & keyboards is higher on the priority list. And there are Distros that do indeed recognise this and cater for it: SuSE is one (mainly European) and TurboLinux is another (mainly Asia-Pacific).

As a result of this, these Distros are much more popular in their respective geographies than RedHat. MUCH more popular. (and not only for "good" reasons: there's as much senseless product jingoism in the computer biz as there is in any other (e.g. all those pissing-on-ford/chevvy badges one can observe on trucks in the US).

As a result of this effect, Linux's penetration world-wide is increased over and above that which would be observed if there was only One True Distro. And IBM therefore has a bigger global market into which it can sell it's value-add services and products.

It can therefore be observed that this isn't altruism on the part of these companies, it's just plain business sense: support the infrastructure that provides your ability to sell. RedHat is a part of, but by no means all of, that infrastructure, globally, and it behoves us all to remember that.

This would be a good time...

[mblase]

...for all you longtime SUSE freeloaders to buy copies of their CDs. (Yes, I know it's free-as-in-beer to download, but do you want a new distro next year or not?)

Re:Lets see

[Arandir]

Slackware never wanted to be a multi-million dollar commercial firm, so of course they're not. You measure success by the attainment of your goals, not by the attainment of someone else's goals.

(oh, and LinuxPPC and Turbolinux aren't dead either)

Re: Exchange Killer

[scooby-doo]

Well it's not a complete exchange killer, but Insight Server from Bynari isn't a bad replacement. It has had some big press lately. It doesn't use MAPI, only LDAP, POP3, IMAP, various standard protocols. Outlook works if you configure it correctly (very easy). It has a few drawbacks, such as the Outlook configuring, but overall it's a decent product. I've implemented it before and my clients were very pleased. It's $299 for 100 users, so it's not free but it's darn cheap compared to Exchange.

Re:Stating the obvious

[_Swank]

No, IBM has stated numerous times (sorry, no links) that they don't want an "IBM Linux" of any sort.

However they do have strategic partnerships with 4 different distributions -- Red Hat, SuSE, TurboLinux, and Caldera. These partnerships basically state that IBM and the distro company will ensure that IBM server software (DB2, Lotus Domino, WebSphere, MQSeries, etc) runs and is packaged properly for these distros. The partnerships have been in place for a year or two at least but were originally chosen to get a very wide coverage throughout the world (RedHat in US, SuSE in Europe, TurboLinux in Asia, and Caldera in Antartica(?)).

Since SuSE and RedHat are probably the main 2 left of the original 4 (yes, TurboLinux and Caldera are still kicking -- some less than others) there is good reason that IBM make sure SuSE stay afloat.

Re:It's sad

[sabinm]

I hate to tell you this, but Microsoft makes a killing for support of their product. Technet, for an average Joe? 475/yr. Fixing aol on a out of warranty system (2 service calls) 35 dollars an incident. Professional support for NT/2000 255-1000. Enterprise support? 10-10000 to A cool million. You can't make money off support? Cisco charges millions of dollars for premium support for it's products. That's just the service agreement, not including the products. The ONLY way to make money off of software is service and support.

They saved suse because suse supports them!

[cybrthng]

Suse is the only distro that will support

1) IBM Products
2) Oracle Products
3) Commercial Software.

Suse knows linux is an operating system. Suse is very stable yet ahead of the game compared to US based distros.

If i use Suse linux i can replace expensive NT and Solaris servers running Oracle 9iAS and Databases. Redhat, many times over has told me to buy there 2,500.00 Redhat for Oracle (which is 6.0 based and pretty crappy) and do all sorts of hacks to get any recent rdbms working.

On the other hand, sude made sure that 7.0, 7.1 and 7.2 works with these commercials apps because that is where they get the demand for the OS.

Believe me, free software doesn't demand anything, but business requirments do. Redhat database doesn't cut it for anything other then a website and frankly, its very microsoft of Redhat to try and produce everything under the sun for there os.

So yeah, under suse you can run Domino, DB2, Oracle 9ias, Oracle 9i, Oracle8, oracle forms and reports, oracle forms developer and all the crap every other distro supports.

And usually people pay for OS support when business software relies on it.

Money contingent on CEO going bye-bye?

[hobbs]

It's interesting that you point out SuSE was "in trouble" for the CEO leaving - 2 days before this announcement was made. My brother manages a tech fund, and he has stated that a common thing he (and others managing such investments) expects is the ability to shake out management as a contigency to investing (also like requesting a board seat or three). My bet is the CEO's leaving was directly tied to SuSE getting $$$.

But then again, maybe not...

Re:Last release

[Arandir]

At the LWCE I picked up a LinuxPPC dated December 2000. So that's about 9 months since an official stable release.

From what I understand, LPPC does not have a current maintainer. BFD. That doesn't mean people aren't using it, or that it won't have a maintainter in the very near future.

Just what makes a distribution "dead"? The fact that they haven't released anything in over two weeks? Two months? Six months? I remember the days when everyone said Slackware was dead because they hadn't released anything in a year. Then boom! Then they said it was dead because Windriver laid them off, then boom!

The viability of a Free Software project is not predicated upon the sales figures, or the market share, or how many people are using it. I strongly suspect that Yggdrasil is dead, but if they came out with a new release tomorrow, it wouldn't surprise me.