Novell/SUSE Prime for Aquisition?

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.

Comments

Ripe why?

[bsayer]

I don't see why IBM would want the combination of them. SuSE by itself I can see, but why would IBM be more interested with Novell as part of the deal? IBM has Notes, so it doesn't need GroupWise.

Re:Ripe why?

[_Bunny]

One word: eDirectory

One feature that Linux lacks in the datacenter is a directory. eDirectory is what used to be known as NDS. Novell ported it to Linux a few years ago...

I am the sysadmin for a NetWare shop. Having a replicated, partitioned directory tree is wonderful. It's one of those things that "just works".

- Bunny

Novell would make a great buy for IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

Suddenly, they'd hold all of Novell's rights vs. SCO. Since they sold SCO those rights to begin with, SCO could quickly wind up in a pickle... :]

Especially since Novell has those rights to direct SCO to do whatever it wants with respect to the contract between SCO & IBM.

In other words, IBM buying Novell would draw the noose more tightly around SCO's neck (okay, true, that's overkill, but...)

Win Win for IBM

[c1ay]

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

The end of Red Hat?

[todesengel]

If there was a buy out of Novell, it would definately spell the end of Red Hat. Imagine how strong of a Linux powerhouse IBM or Cisco owning Ximian, Suse, and Novell would be. Both desktop and server would benifit immensely. A little side note: check out these two stock graphs of Novell and Red hat, on the day Suse was aquired. Redhat Novell

I don't think so.

[sjvn]

Please! IBM and HP buy a Linux company? 'Why buy a cow when milk is free' has been their attitude towards Linux for a while now. Besides, IBM will soon own a small share of Novell anyway--more than sufficient to do them good if there's anything to the stories of Novell having enough Unix IP rights left to protect any Linux with a Novell brand on it from SCO attacks.

As for the others, sorry, I keep an eye on all of them, and I haven't see any sign of any of them having any interest in getting into the OS business. AT&T & Lucent have their own problems to fix, and Cisco is finally coming around quite nicely by having stuck to their main business lines.

Steven

IBM doesn't need Novell

[Ayanami Rei]

to beat SCO. That's a done deal.

It may be, however, that IBM wants "the whole package". That is, Novell and SCO, and all their combined trademarks and patents. They'd have the whole Unix kit and kaboodle, in addition to some nice file system, network protocols, directory, client management etc. tech. to add to their portfolio.

Obligatory SCO connection

[hsa]

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

Analyst

[lovelace]

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?

Not likely, though

[A nonymous Coward]

IBM made a point a few years ago of emphasizing that they wanted to be a service company and work with all Linux distributions neutrally, not make their own. If they were to suddenly favor one distro so strongly, it would discard their neutrality, and I think that would hurt their current business model.