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Novell Announces Agreement to Acquire SUSE
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."
This looks like an interesting move. Novell used to make some interesting products before being owned and pushing to linux might make it easier to keep up with the boring hardware compatibility, performance crap.
I'm glad to see Novell making a move here. They've been sliding into remission too long. I've still got a warm place in my heart from them for the 4.11 line that I used so extensively back in the school system.
Apparently, the Novell CEO upon signing the agreement burst out into song: "Suse-Q, baby I love you, Suse-Q".
It really happened - I swear.
Dude, Novell bought SuSe to destroy KDE so that GNOME can win.
GNOME FOREVER!
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.
Now SCO can sue the company that sold them UNIX.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
It looks like there is a web cast at 11 AM EST. Perhaps we will learn some useful information on what Novell is planning.
http://www.novell.com/webcast
will Novell make their SuSE distro contain the infamous PHASERS.WAV and the FIRE PHASERS as part of the login?
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
two possible results:
1. Novell stuffs this up, and I'm left with no real "Free" solution for buisnesses (I dont care about support, I just want a brand name and is recognizable and usable).
2. Novell doesnt stuff it up, and SUSE takes over Redhat's market share here in north america.
Either way, linux growth is going to stop dead for a good chunk of time while these issues with Redhat and Suse settle down.
After yesterdays' article regarding Redhat's changes, I started looking at SUSE more carefully. Now we've got such serious flux in the two most important linux distributions that it'll take six months to a year before I feel comfortable pitching either of these to buisnesses.
.
The divide between Novell and SCO gets wider. Once allies, this has got drive the wedge deeper between the two. While its been happening for a while now, this is will most assuredly accelerate their falling out and will force Novell to adopt a much more aggressive position against SCO's IP claims.
In short, "The plot thickens."
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Novell/Suse is going to pick up the slack left by Red Hat getting out of the retail market. Very good indeed. Hope Suse is repackaged into the the red and white Novell style. I get the feeling that Red Hat will live to regret abandoning its base.
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?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I bet they wish they hadn't sold all that IPnnow. But then it would just have tempted them into doing what SCO are doing right now (making it appear that their distro is the only legal one).
i don't know if this has been reported on /. yet. basically what its saying is that RH is dropping RH Linux in favour of Entperise and a "developer" version called Fedora.
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.
For over three years now the differing factions at Novell have been fighting over which route to take in relation to the what will be the backbone of it's products. The Netware factions has been directly responsible for Novell NOT developing it's own Linux, despite them having their own kernel and distro in house.
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.
Novell offerred $210M for SuSE according to the article, that may be a bit low. I personally use SuSE and would like to see them continue to do well. Perhaps others can give details, my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I don't remember their stewardship of Unix System Laboratories to be especially good or bad. SuSE may be in a position to become a much larger player in the Unix arena, given Redhat's recent change in direction. I wonder how IBM will react (IBM is using SuSE internally, how well does Novell's management get along with IBM?).
With the regionalization of Linux distros, SuSE has always been known as Europe's Linux (German company, strong EU language support inherent, etc.). I'm curious to see if the EU will try to flex its regulatory muscles rather than allow a US company to buy SuSE. Obviously, they can't cry anti-trust, but who knows what other regulations they could come up with.
RW
I work for the 3rd largest software-only developer in the world. I get plenty of opportunity to go to large, Fortune 500 companies and see their environments.
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...
Does this mean that Novell will implement a proper open-source directory service within linux as well? I understand their Netware product line will be migrating (or is migrated) to the linux platform, but what of something open? Or will novell just throw its proprietary software on top of linux, and ride the open source wave without giving anything worthwhile back (a la apple).
.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Novell has been trying to get a desktop OS for years, remember Novell DOS? I think they finally have a winning combination withe SUSE and Ximian.
I hope they succeed, NDS is a great back end platform, so they can offer a end-to-end solution for business on Linux. They just need to learn to market it!
... if that's your best, your best won't do... - Twisted Sister
From the press release:
Novell today also announced that IBM intends to make a $50 million investment in Novell convertible preferred stock. In addition, Novell and IBM are negotiating extensions to the current commercial agreements between IBM and SUSE LINUX for the continued support of SUSE LINUX on IBM's eServer products and middleware products to provide for product and marketing support arrangements related to SUSE LINUX. Both of these agreements will be effective when the acquisition of SUSE LINUX by Novell is completed. zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
If linux were a typical closed source product, it would be expected that consolidaton in the linux sector would have begun long time ago. Given the fact that it isn't, I wasn't sure whether any linux company would bother purchasing another since the product that they "sell" is not protected and can be easily copied. However, consolidation has begun for enterprise linux and this is a really good thing. For linux to flourish, it needs the backing of a couple of strong corporate players. Obviously IBM, Sun and Redhat qualify but only Redhat has a direct interest in linux for the sake of linux. I hope that novell can really get its act together and put together a compelling package, they certainly have the right pieces.
novell has a long history of fucking up good ideas. only now, at the end, do they realize what has been kicking their ass: limited APP server offerings.
Novell is perceived by most of my customers as a (fairly kick ass) file-print-directory services server only system. but file-print-directory services are only part of what companies need these days. they need groupware/email (groupwise is a joke), they need SQL servers, and they need "Micro Vertical App Server" for Their Tiny Industry that somebody in a garage is addressing. And they want it all on the same platform, with integrated authentication.
small vertical apps is a big one, but it seems to be too much of a bitch to write these VBesque vertical apps on novell, so nobody does. "Small Dentist Office Accounting Pro" gets cooked up on windows by a small software company and not on novell. (incidentally this is a bit of a problem for linux on the desktop front: the crazy apps like "BeeKeeper Ranching and Honey Tracking" are what keep most businesses from switching on the desktop).
looks like Novell is trying to do what they failed to do with the original Unix license they pissed away: create a Novell branded viable app server platform. they screwed up the first time with proprietary unix. maybe a more open system will succeed, but knowing Novell, probably not.
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
They buy promising company and bug them down in politics. The leader of the bought company run away with their new cash so no new development worth noticing happens. What's left is a company that sells and resells repackaged old product at an ever increasing price. I hope SuSE will be strong enough to resist the Corp politics.
Now what company was it yesterday you all called a sellout? I forget. I thought it was Redhat. Now who are you guys going to turn to when Novell turns SuSe into a half closed half open business hybred? They will have lots of locked down protocols going in this new product i'll betcha.
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.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
This is a great match, especially if Novell is looking to take on Redhat in the enterprise market why continuing Suse's traditional of having a great desktop distro. If Novell really spends a lot of $$ on this project and brands a distro as Novel Linux or Suse Linux by Novel, it be a lot easier to convince "the suits" to move to Linux when you have a company like Novell producing its own distro. As mentioned in other comments it will be interesting to see how the Suse/Ximian combination plays out since it is essentially KDE/Gnome. .
CBSMarketwatch is reporting that IBM has announced that it will invest 50 Million in Novell, This is getting more interesting by the minute!!!
Now that is a very interesting 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.
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In pre-market trading, Novell stock is already up 27%.
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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.
That's an easy one to overcome. "Oh, Fedora is the new name for RedHat Linux. You know, just like how it was Windows NT, then 2000, then XP, and now Longhorn? Yea..."
That's funny, because the Sun "Java Desktop" is SuSE Linux 8.2 running GNOME and it's selling like hot cakes.
Stick Men
SuSE's got a damn good thing going. Don't muck it up. It's one thing if you want to bring enterprise level functionality and a slew of awesome new features to Linux (and to SuSE Linux in particular), but it's quite another thing to buy out a linux company and force them to take their linux distro in a different direction. I hope you choose the former and not the latter. SuSE is doing a dynamite job, so stay out of their way. Help, don't hinder.
;)
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.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
NOVELL INC (NasdaqNM:NOVL)
Pre-Market: 7.499 +1.449 (23.95%)
NOVL Market Cap: 2.26B
Let's do the math.
Novell will pay $210 million for Suse, but Novell's market cap goes up by $500 million upon announcing the deal.
So basically, the acquisition of Suse is FREE. Actually, Novell made an extra $300 million in stock value by announcing the deal - so it's better than free.
Gotta love the free market system.
Except that Novell can just tell SCO that they can't sue - I wonder why we don't hear more on this... Since it appears that SCO can't sue IBM anyway.
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
This could be an excellent business strategy if properly executed.
Novell clients are usually pretty slow to move into new products and spaces because of their current Novell comfort level.
Bring that comfort level along with the stability of the Linux platform and NetWare's reliability and you've got a pretty solid and very competitive platform. PERIOD.
Proven File and Print Services
Proven Directory Services
Solid Groupware/Email Services
Solid out-of-the-box web server/services solution
and now built on top of a rock solid Linux foundation... this is going to get very interesting... very fast!
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." ;)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I thought that I was a keen Open Source-preacher, but listen to these (separate and shortened) clips from the Novell announcement:
... provides ... services with the high-availability and scalability features needed for mission-critical environments. "
"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. "
Somehow, I do not think that we are seeing the big picture.
The recent changes in the leading Linux vendors combine to make for a very interesting future. Novell first acquired Ximian which along with its Ximain Desktop, Evolution and Mono, also provided the Red Carpet update service for Red Hat distributions. Then Red Hat announced that they would not be providing further updates for the free/consumer version of their product. This left users in the cold forcing them to use Fedora or some other free disto or Novell/Ximian might have used Red Carpet to fill the gap.
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.
I'm reminded of my reaction to Novell buying Unix System Labs in 92/93 and the sale to SCO in 1995 and the SCO rename to Caldera later. It all seemed to Rosey.
Unix appeared to be in reliable hands and was being freed into Linux, Caldera even said as much.
Then came per seat, and all the rest to the point where we are now with SCO attempting to steal Linux and claim far more in Unix than the law ever intended for.
It keeps me from getting any warm fuzzies over Novell aquireing Suse.
On the Redhat front. I find it odd being a registered adoptee of Redhat (can you really be the owner of OS software?) and a shareholder in the company that I have yet to recieve the email about the end of Redhat Linux.
Redhat's site backed up the stories.
BUT it's being misunderstood.
Yes RH9 appears to be the last in it's line BUT RH Enterprise Linux WS is actually it's repacement.
The License for RHEL WS is the same as for RH9. The only real change is that to get support from Redhat, you are going to HAVE TO PAY for the support.
Your free to get support elsewhere free or otherwise.
Reasonable and overdue, it's a sign of the maturity of commercial Linux.
I'll probably step up to RH Enterprise, and now that Suse is under Novell I'll give it another cautious try, but there really isn't a reason to leave RH.
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.
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.
--
$tar -xvf
It's about time!
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
1.) Novell does a f*ck up with SuSE, goes down the drain and pulls SuSE along until they're bought out by somebody else. This is somewhat likely, as SuSE is doing very good as a Linux brand right now. It could hardly get better rather than worse. In germany (most Linux users per capita) SuSE is even synonym for Linux!
All in all that would stall Linux brand recognition but probably be good news for Mandrake, the last one left.
2.) Novell has actually seen the light and plans way ahead into the future, were software won't make a buck anymore, but free software will reign and the business is in services.
3.) Novell/SuSE twitches here and there, barely surviving, taking shares from Mandrake, they all die eventually, Mickeysoft prevails and there is a 5 year setback for OSS, with only Gentoo and Debian to the rescue in the far future, when the OSS model has consumed everything.
Bottom line:
I don't like this news. Sound bad. Chances are to high that this once o-so big company Novell is gonna screw up. And SuSE is my first recomendation to n00bs right now. It would be a real shame for them to go down the drain.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Also, SuSE is doing remarkably well in Europe, where the German government has been giving it a lot of support. Once it's seen as "tainted" by US corporate interests (trust me, Europeans are not happy with the US), it might impact how well SuSE is received by Governments in Europe.
(Especially as SuSE is perceived as being a safe way to avoid backdoors imposed by foreign Governments.)
On the flip-side, development work costs money, and Novell probably has more of that than SuSE. If Novell gets this right, and puts in some serious cash, Linux could get some badly-needed investment in the ease-of-use arena. IBM and SGI have done wonders for filesystems, high-end architectures, etc, but they're not known for producing software for Joe Average. Novell's networking products were popular in schools, at one point, precicely because they were easy for idiots to use.
Since that fits in nicely with SuSE's reputation of easy-to-use, easy-to-install distros, that offers some excellent opportunities.
That's where the skeptisism must come in, unfortunately. An opportunity is not the same thing as a reality. Unless Novell makes use of this, and brings Linux to the masses, this move will do nothing for anyone, SuSE included.
If Novell do bring Linux to the masses... well, that's a different kettle of fish. Then this will be the greatest move imaginable, and everyone will benefit signigicantly.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"I would bet that Novell/Suse arent going to piss off all the developers like Red Hat has done."
Um, yeah, how has Redhat pissed off all the developers again? By giving control of their distro back to the community with Fedora? By letting developers submit their packages for inclusion in Fedora, and giving them more control over maintaining said packages? By releasing under the GPL the source code to every single piece of software they've ever made, so that developers can add to and modify it as they like? Oh, maybe it was by hiring developers that have been working on projects such as GNOME and Mozilla, so they can get paid for doing what they love.
Moron.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
The biggest possibility is that they're going to move to Ximianized GNOME as the desktop. They'd be foolish to throw away a major asset (Ximian GNOME, which is far easier to use than even SuSE's KDE) just because some of their new developers were fans of KDE. I would expect YAST to see some major revisions, too.
Lots of people will want to deny this because they know that it would be a huge blow to the KDE project. I really can't blame them. But Sun and RedHat are both using GNOME now, and Novell seems to be apt to move in that direction, too. Desktop consolidation arrives in the corporate market. We'll see if this changes anything...
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
IBM wants Novell back in the Linux business and that's why IBM is providing the backing for the deal. This is also tied in with the fact that Novell retained the right to require SCO to "amend, supplement, modify or waive any right" under the license agreements sold to SCO for UNIX (and if SCO did not comply, Novell could exercise those rights itself on SCO's behalf). IBM is interested in crushing SCO and Novell needs a distro to further it's investment in the Ximian desktop. It's a symbiotic relationship that will cause the fall of Darl McBride :-) This would be a really good time to get rid of any SCO paper before Scott Tissue takes it over...
Fine - if you're a computer geek. But try convincing your PHB to try Debian "unstable". Or even "testing". Try to explain why Debian's stable version has software from the last century.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Novell has a history of jumping on every bandwagon at it's peak, then abandoning it when something else comes along. Consider their past:
1. Buying the AT&T source, then announcing plans to merge NetWare and UNIX into a hybrid called "SuperNOS"
2. Buying Wordperfect, Quattro Pro and creating WordPerfect Office.
3. Java-on-NetWare. Anyone remember "the world's fastest Java execution environment"?
Every one of these failed, and was quietly abandoned. Now it's Linux. Hopefully they actually stick with this initiative long enough for it to bear some fruit.
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...
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
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?
----- obSig
This makes Mandrake the only even moderately high profile commercial Linux distribution left in European hands, and as is well known Mandrake's finances are seriously wobbly. And this matters for everyone just now, because the future of Linux in the US is being played out in just that same murky Salt Lake City slime-pool. Fall out from the SCO case will affect all US-owned Linux distributions.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
According to our Novell rep, they will indeed be porting GroupWise's back-end to Linux, and are already partway along. He also said they are going to be developing a Ximian Connector product to connect Evolution to GroupWise, similar to the way they did for Exchange.
I dont know about you, But I would be worried if I used SuSe as my Linux Distro.
Why? Because Novell Aquired it. If there's anything that has been proven over the last couple of years is that Novell buying a company out is basicially the Kiss of Death.
Look at Wordperfect (pratcially dead), Quattro Pro (dead) and Caldara (Now SCO. - Suing anything that Produces code for money)
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe their aquiring it in order to expand their networking capability beyond Netware futher, or do away with the netware OS altogether and replace it with a Linux based network server.
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The big question is how well have they thought this through. With the recent aqcuisitions, they have the firepower, but now they need to use it
:
wisely.
To crack MS's lock on the desktops I can see them doing a couple of things
1. Offering SUSE ISO's for DL
2. Offering SUSE to Dell, gateway etc with a minimal or no license fee.
They now have the option of an end to end software solution, tied to a global directory
that works and is easy to admin. They will need to push the desktop to gain acceptance, which is why I think we'll see SUSE ISOs. Now if only they'd start spamming those CD's like AOL does....
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will the new company be NoSE or NOSE?
sorry...
Life is short; think quickly.
I think that we shall see more of this as the SCO claims get closer to court. All these companies (Novell, IBM, etc..) are going to be snatching up the various Linux distro companies. On the slim chance that SCO actually gets to court and even in the slightest chance that the GPL is ruled invalid. These purchasing companies now have pretty impressive software and it's all free to do what they want with it. Call this post flaimbait or trolling. The one thing that I have learned is that allmost all big businesses are evil and have one thing in mind. Make lots of money on the backs of others and Open Source is just waiting to be picked dry.
It would be a sad day if this came to be true....
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?
Chronology: 1995+
Novell acquires AT&T UNIX source code.
Novell rewrites NetWare.
Novell sells UNIX source code to SCO.
NetWare customer base shrinks to increasing Windows NT marketshare.
Novell changes CEO's (Schmidt, etc.) like new parents change diapers.
Novell acquires Ximian and SuSE Linux.
SCO announces intentions to sue everyone with derivative UNIX technologies.
Oh if only we knew then what we know now.....
Hopefully Novell will be more forward thinking than it has demonstrated in the past, one notable indcident being it's slow process to adopt TCP/IP as a 'core' protocol over the inefficient IPX/SPX suite. Other incidences like the acquisition of the Word Perfect office suite (around 1994) and the subsequent lack of execution for this acquisition have often been the downfall of Novell. I would really like to think that Jack Messman (he whom called GNU/Linux immature) is going to change all that but alas only time will tell. Novell has had more than their share of talent that failed to materialize profit, Peter Schmidt (Java kingpin) among others have made contributions but never brought the cash cow home to graze.
C'mon Novell don't fail us this time....
But I have the IQ (and spelling ability) of an emtpy shoebox so what the hell do I know.
Because it wasn't released at the time of Debian Woody? Red Hat 7.3 doesn't have KDE 3 either. What's your point? If you want KDE 3 then run unstable. It's as stable as Red Hat 9 would be for example.
The last I heard, SuSE wasn't making YaST publically available.
;)
Well, I might be wrong, but I think their policy was like this since I started to use SUSE in 1996. It is also true that the Yast license is not true OpenSource in the sense defined by the OSI. But still the source is available, and I just wanted to point that out, since there seems to be generally quite some confusion about this. SUSE seems to think that completely GPLing their distribution would endanger their revenues by others selling their distribution. This might or might not be true, but I personally don't have problems with this as long as they give back to the community by strongly contributing to projects like the kernel, KDE, XWindows, ReiserFS...
Oh, and I completely agree with you that calling Red Hat an "evil empire" is absurd and you are right with this part of your post.
Or you could do what I did and buy a Qt programming book from orielly and just start using kdevelop. You can also develop your application in java using eclipse. A good place to start would also be using the tk libraties for perl, tkinter for python or tcl/tk. Oreilly has books on all of these.
Excellent move for Novell. They were smart enough to realize that NetWare has had it's day, and it's time to move on.
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.
I have to wonder what the german cities that have invested heavily in switching to SuSE precisely to remove independance from US based software are thinking, now that SuSE is going to be US Based software.
They're probably wishing they took Ballmers offer now.
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There is a flaw in you part 2. You don't take into account that microsoft might not be happy about gateway and dell offering linux as an option. Microsoft might punish them by increasing the pricing of the oem licenses. Another option which is being in effect now, is that microsoft give reduced prices to oems that only offer microsoft products.
The change to linux is going to be gradual where there will come a point where microsoft can't grab the balls of major computer providers and force them to use microsoft products.
Are you serious? Spending $210 million dollars to buy SuSE, just to crush one major Linux player? In addition to the amount invested into Ximian? I think not. With the combined power of Ximian leading to full desktop integration with their existing product line, and the #2 enterprise Linux distro, their benefit to RedHat would be greatly outweighed by the damage they will cause to it. RedHat is pushing enterprise only adoption; Novell/SuSE is backing the Desktop and Server models, bringing it to everyone. This is much more appealing than RedHat's offerings. I've been souring to RedHat lately, and this is getting me damn near ecstatic.
Buy recommendation for Y2K4: Novell/Google.
This is getting interesting.
Well, this is interesting. I was on the Corsair research project at Novell in 1993, when Bryan Sparks and the rest of the gang that became Caldera spent 18 months trying to create a Linux desktop product inside Novell. Novell killed the project, because they couldn't see the value in the world wide web or in Linux.
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.