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Novell/SUSE Prime for Aquisition?

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the big-ticket-companies dept.

Ho Kooshy Fly writes "Supposedly Novell/SUSE looks like a good buyout target now. The likes of the obvious, IBM and the less obvious Cisco might be interested in integrating in the new Novell/SUSE company into their portfolio." Lucent, AT&T, and HP are also mentioned as possible buyers, but it's important to remember that it's all still just speculation.

8 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Win Win for IBM by c1ay · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since Novell, as part of its sale of the UNIX licenses to SCO, retained the right to require SCO to "amend, supplement, modify or waive any right" under the license agreements (and if SCO did not comply, Novell could exercise those rights itself on SCO's behalf)....See http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=13 03_0_3_0_C

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  2. IBM? Maybe. HP? Probably not now. by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 2, Informative

    IBM would be duplicating a lot of software effort if they were to purchase Novell and it's tech portfolio. For example NDS and ZenWorks would compete directly with Tivoli.
    SuSE might be useful as they have global acceptance which may help to sell more Linux products and solutions to the global marketplace vs. RHES.

    HP probably won't buy it (yet). If they do it will be to take SuSE for use as their Linux solution provider, and to put down Novell to garner further favor from Microsoft- who also power their midrange backoffice offerings. But HP is still cooling down from the Compaq merger. It's too soon to look at Novell while simultaneously keeping it's current investors happy (they should be focusing on ops as is).

    Maybe it'll be Oracle, to use as another pawn in their game to beat everybody else (read: Microsoft) no matter what the cost.

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    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  3. Having seen Cisco's recent ads by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm wondering if they are trying to posture themselves as an infrastructure company, a solutions brand, not a hardware company.

    Novell and it's assets (particularly app servers, resource management and clustering stuff) would make that a possibility.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  4. Obligatory SCO connection by hsa · · Score: 5, Informative

    Look at the name of the analyst - Laura Didio.
    Maybe you remember her from her SCO kernel source code news?

  5. patents+GPL - no IBM Linux ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    There's a reason IBM didn't make their
    own Linux distribution. If IBM were to
    be in that business, lots of IBM patents
    would get let out. See the GPL for details.

    So, no way. SuSE would be toxic to IBM.

  6. Re:Novell will not be taken over: too much cash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Actually I don't think this means anything since the market has already priced this into their market cap (currently 2.8 billion).

  7. Analyst by lovelace · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just look at who's predicting that Novell will be aquired. It's Laura Dido, the same analyst that said SCO had a case. Why should anyone believe her now anymore than they did on the SCO code thing?

  8. IBM refuses to distribute a kernel even by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    When an IBM employed kernel hacker put
    the full (modified) Linux source on IBM's
    web site, IBM's lawyers stopped him ASAP.
    Here's why:

    To distribute Linux, the GPL must be
    followed. The GPL has something to say
    about patents. If IBM were to distribute
    some code (even non-IBM code) that uses
    an IBM patent, then IBM would have just
    made that patent available to everybody.

    Distributing the whole pile of Linux
    software would be out of the question.
    So there's no way IBM wants Novell+SuSE.