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Intel Invests 12 Million Euro in SuSE
Bartmoss writes "Intel and the venture capital firm Apax are investing 12 million Euro in SuSE. Read the press release online. Looks like they want to open up new offices in parts of Europe, start moving into the Asian markets, and do the fashionable IPO thing. "
For those that don't know, 1 Euro is pretty close in price to one US dollar.
Alright, I love to hear about my favorite distro especially to hear that it is growing. :^)
More good new: 6.3 will be out in stores December first.
Although I suppose I'd have been more accurate if I'd said that it was close in value to the dollar, rather than price... ;)
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hmmm, the EU is looking into a ban of the PIII and Intel starts investing in European companies. I guess things work the same way the world over.
If SuSE and Red Hat can get together and do strategic spending (no need for them to duplicate each other's staff & skill lists), then we could see some staggering strides towards the desktop.
On the other hand, if SuSE and Red Hat prefer bloody battle between each other, we could end up seeing a vicious fight indeed, with these kinds of resources available.
I guess we shall see.
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)
This had to happen. SuSE and Red Hat are almost exactly the same size (SuSE makes a profit, Red Hat a small loss) and Red Hat are expanding into SuSE's 'patch' - even recruiting Alan Cox along the way.
Now SuSE are trying to expand in the same way - this money is to expand their marketing.
They still have to take the step of 'going public' (an IPO) - this is not a good time to go that way in Germany.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Hey guys don't forget that Intel has a vested
interest in the wintel hegemony.
They may be giving Redhat, VA research and Suse money. but do you really want to replace windows
with Pentium?
Look at VA linux they have stopped selling or
developing for any system but INTEL.
NO Alpha,
NO PPC,
NO AMD,
NO Nothing, except INTEL from VA Research.
They even have started spouting INTEL FUD about
how merced will take over the world.
When these linux companies get bought by big
companies with vested interests they will begin
to change.
We just don't want software choice we also
want hardware choice. don't forget that.
So VA Research, and all those companies that are
making it rich on linux. remember where it all
came from. And support linux on all hardware possible.
For those of you who don't know, Intel likes sprinkling their money everywhere. They will invest in anything that even remotely takes advantage of their goals or bottom line. I work at a wintel software house developing digital video and graphics products and intel bought 20% stake just so we would push the envelope for SSE and their higher end chips. We also get all their new high end chips many months before they reach the market.. :)
I was surprised when talking to friends in competing companies that intel had done the same with them. It seems they like to get their hands in everything.
Well I see some major differences between the way RH and SuSE conduct business. RH seem to be a "Linux freak" community moving into the business area; SuSE seems the more mature but "less cool" approach. RH makes minimal losses, SuSE is profitanle. I don't think they're going to slug it out now, as some users suggest - there's a huge market out there, and it's virtually divided by RedHat, SuSE and maybe Debian. They're not invading each other's turf, either - if one company hires, say Alan Cox to work on Linux, it benefits the competition just as much.
.. ;)
The battle's going to be over who converts the most new users to Linux. That's where most packages are sold, I'd wager, and also over market share in the business support area. That's where the money lies with Linux.
I'd also like to point out that SuSE is a general distributor of (Linux) software and even hardware.. For example, I bought Civ:CTP from them.
I'd say RH is firmly entrenched in the US, while SuSE holds much of the EU. SuSE is now doing the sensible thing - instead of trying to compete overly much with RH, they're grabbing market shares in other, more "linux virgin" markets.
We'll see what happens... I'd also like to see how well SuSE stock performs at an IPO - Certainly not as spectacular as redhat, but I'd predict growth nonetheless... Afterall SuSE does make profits in addition to beingon the top of the Linux wave
This is good because it will help a lot of R&D happen a lot faster than it otherwise would have, but at what cost?
I use SuSE pretty much exclusively, and I love it. When the Athlon first came out, the SuSE boot disk wouldn't work with it. SuSE very quickly posted an Athlon-compatible boot disk on their web site. Do you think Intel's investment will prod SuSE to ignore AMD? I think Intel makes fine products, but if these investments are just their way of discouraging software support for their competitors' products... well, they will have to be stopped. They've proven beyond any doubt this year that they no longer hold their #1 Chip Company position by superior products; strongarm tactics and (semi-)empty threats are their new modus operandi. I'm buying an Athlon soon because I want the best for my next x86 PC, and if SuSE backs down on support for it I'll be cancelling my subscription and going back to Slackware...
Its in Intel's interest for operating systems to run slowly so people will buy faster hardware. I hope the SuSE distro dosn't start filling up with useless features. 486's are very cheap these days and are great for all sort of industrial control, embedded applications and single-task box in a cubaord uses.
It seems to me that Intel investing in other OSes is almost old hat. Not only did then send money RedHat's way, the sent Intel engineers over to Be Inc. in order to help them with the port of BeOS to x86 platform.
Mind you, that was also before Linux was generally considered a serious threat to Windows.
Dana
This is a point to think about. If Intel's investments in Linux companies will slow down or stop Linux development for alternative platforms, then it's not good for Linux in general.
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The name of the company on the press release is SuSE Linux AG !
AG = Aktien Gesellschaft and Aktie = Stock
However I can't find them listed on the German stock exchanges. Is it possible to be an AG but not being publicly traded ?
The website still refers to the company as SuSE GmbH (corporation with limited liability).
Intel is investing in every alternitive to Microsoft out there... Be, the Linux distros... Obviously they're attempting to spread their installed user base around multiple OSes. After all, their livelyhood kind of depends on Microsoft, which puts them in an awkardly dependant position. The name "Wintel" probably causes them cringe, I'd bet.
But, my question is, are they doing more harm than good? They want the intel seed sewn pretty much everywhere there's installed desktop, regardless of OS. But, if the average consumer is faced with a dozen Linux variants and a handful of other alternative operating system... They're going to run to what they know. And that puts us back into obscurity.
Betting on everyone never really wins big.
Just a friendly reminder that pressing the Preview button before submiting can save even you from unsightly and embarrasing typos in the friggin' subject...
:)
My bad.
What about AMD, 3DNow, those bootdisks that wouldn't work with K6 ....
Your point is that Intel wants to sell more Intel chips, right? Duh!
The don't really care if Windows or anything else runs on it.
They fact is that Linux on Intel runs very well, thankyou very much!
Sure, AMD is making big improvements, but they don't have a great choice in motherboards yet, and they aren't that much cheaper than Intel at the same performace level - and Intel can do better multiprocessing (because of the motherboard situation) at the moment.
Maybe one day that IBM PowerPC standard will make an impact, but until then for Price/Performance Intel kicks butt.
Mercard will be nice, too - when it arrives. It will be cheap because of the huge number that will be produced, and Intel needs Linux to run on it quickly so they can get a lot of early adopters to use (and test!) it.
Even Colbolt is leaving MIPS to move to Intel because of the better performance for the money.
Sure, we want hardware choice, but don't get mad at Intel for making pretty good products and trying to sell them. (PIII serial number excluded, of course)
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It's obvious that Intel is scared shitless of Athlon. They are trying to nail down as many companies as possible. I see these investments happening together with the lawsuits Intel has started against VIA, Everex, Asus and others. Intel has a *!*LOT*!* of cash, so they are using it to prevent the market from adopting AMD chips. Looks like they have read a page from Microsoft's strategy.
Only my 0.02, don't sue me if you disagree.
Sigged!
vs.
SuSE will use the investments to set up new sales and support offices worldwide.
and "worldwide" in this case probably doesn't mean europe :)
I want to invest in SuSE. WTF do I find their stock?
Once upon a time I picked a retail copy of SuSE Linux 6.1, largely because it happened to carry a large number of "latest versions" to be had on CD(s).
After installation I was confronted by a bug in their kppp implementation and after a quick look at newsgroups didn't offer any solutions at the time I decided to take advantage of their free 60-day tech support and dropped them an email. After several days I received an automated reply saying they'd be getting back to me soon. That 60 days is distant history and the only thing I've received from SuSE since my support enquiry has been a promotional leaflet that arrived by snail-mail.
I could have made an effort trying to figure out the solution to my problem by myself and then helping others struggling with the same bug but I was counting on SuSE to follow through with their promised support feedback. Meanwhile I kept booting to another fully functional Linux distro, got another upgrade to that and eventually realized SuSE 6.1 wasn't worth the space it was occupying any more.
I'm sure many people received the tech support from SuSE that they paid for so I'd appreciate hearing some success stories from satisfied SuSE users. Does their email support work or did you have to fax or phone them to get an answer?
Personally I would have been satisfied with any kind of non-automated reply but getting totally ignored left a little sour taste in my mouth. As Linux moves closer to attracting Windows users and even absolute newbies the question of tech support will become an issue of vital importance. While I know how to navigate the Linux documentation sites and newsgroups I want to be able to recommend a well-supported distribution to anyone interested in trying out Linux. Every company selling Linux packages with support should keep their end of the bargain or we'll see lots of disgruntled newbies turning their backs to our platform for good. I'm afraid we might even see the MS-friendly press making a big issue of shortcomings in Linux' tech support and to many readers any Linux is Linux is Linux.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Suse is profitable while Redhat isn't. OK. The problem is Suse is more on commercial (=retail) side as oposed to Redhat (which business model looks more and more like a mix between Netscape and Oracle). Suse is competing with Caldera, Mandrake and Corel. As a matter of fact, within two years I doubt Suse or Caldera will exist on the retail, which will belong to Corel. Corel is one of the few software houses that really understand how retail business should be done. Conclusion: this investment is welcomed because it fuels them before the desktop and retail battle starts. Nevertheless the summ is too small in order to build a strong product AND company. It is not too late, but it's too little.
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You sound like an employee. :) take a look at their adds they bash microsoft day and night. all in the name of linux. now its time for them to live up to the name. VA Research has its own opinion on the way to make the most money for itself. Thats fine, But I don't share their opinion and I have a right to dissagree with them. They can choose to listen to me or not. but I still have the right to tell who I please what I please. and there is nothing wrong with that. VA Research was built on open source software, writen by a lot of people for different goals. They can choose to take that and cow tow to one company (INTEL). or realize that their success was built on many people with many different machines, who worked hard to make linux what it is today. I guess that's why they sponsor linux intl. etc. but I think they need to do more. There is a natural conflict of interest between linux and companies like Intel. I think everyone intel included benefits from linux and that should continue. But what I don't want is Intel by buying up all the packagers and developers of linux to stop them from developing linux on other hardware and thus limit the ability of people to contribute to the linux project.
You sound like an employee. :)
take a look at their adds they bash microsoft day and night. all in the name of linux.
now its time for them to live up to the name.
VA Research has its own opinion on the way to make the most money for itself.
Thats fine, But I don't share their opinion
and I have a right to dissagree with them.
They can choose to listen to me or not.
but I still have the right to tell who I please
what I please. and there is nothing wrong with that.
VA Research was built on open source software, writen by a lot of people for different goals.
They can choose to take that and cow tow to
one company (INTEL). or realize that their
success was built on many people with many different machines, who worked hard to make linux
what it is today.
I guess that's why they sponsor linux intl. etc.
but I think they need to do more. There is a natural conflict of interest between linux and companies like Intel.
I think everyone intel included benefits from linux and that should continue.
But what I don't want is Intel by buying up all the packagers and developers of linux to stop
them from developing linux on other hardware and
thus limit the ability of people to contribute
to the linux project.
I have used SuSE 6.1 and 6.2 and received prompt tech support via email on each occasion I have used them. Now, I have the same (negative) experience with Red Hat support (6.1), that you had with SuSE. Not once, but twice, did they lose the logfile I sent them, and to make matters worse, theyswitched their support back end and had me reopen the same ticket under the new system. 36 days and nowhere near a resolution...
SuSE's much-vaunted 60-day installation support isn't worth a great deal IMHO. For example there are a lot of things such as basic network services which aren't covered even when their configuration files are maintained by the SuSEconfig utility (part of YaST). At least this was the case fairly recently. It's not too surprising, really: if you want good technical support with any OS you have to pay through the nose for it.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Hmm - just a few articles ago there was a story about the EU putting an embargo on intel... surely that doesn't bode well for the SuSE investment, SuSE being a German company and all.
This could get interesting... maybe one big mess?
The timing is empecable, is this really a good thing??
Ok, I look at these posts and I see a problem. It seems everyone is all happy that suse is getting money, etc. However, I would like to point out that Intel is possibly going to be under an embargo to Europe - this very story was posted earlier today. Doesn't that seem a little strange?
If you don't see the connection, then think about how many hihg-tech jobs would be created if Intel were to open multiple software offices in Europe. These jobs would be filled by Europeans (not tiny green men, against popular belief). Goverments LIKE high-tech jobs because they pay well (more taxes for the government to collect), very low pollution (less for the government to spend), and make people happier as well. SO, how inclined do you think Intel would be to actually open these offices if their own product was unable to be sold in Europe?
They say the world is run by money. They're right. I don't like the PIII serial number. All my systems will not have PIIIs in them - besides, the athlons are proving themselves to be better. And I can't wait till the upgradeable ones come out! To be able to upgrade my own L1 cache - and up to 8MB! Woohoo!
-ComStar
I'm glad to hear that SuSE is able to offer satisfying support via email and I truly hope my case was just a ghost in the machine. The most important aspect of tech support is IMO that they'll simply _try_ solving their customers' problems.
In your case RedHat obviously screwed up with their support to you, but apparently they at least tried offering support and your cry for help was answered although the problem wasn't solved (yet). I assume you at least got a "non-automated" reply from RedHat.
One last point I'd like to make is that when using a distro put together by a "fringe" Linux company the user relies more on the tech support simply because there's less information and discussion available about it in the public forums. That's the "Network Effect" at work even within the sprouting Linux market.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Tech support should have undergone a _big_ improvement about halfway through the life-cycle of 6.1. Staff is up, a new problem tracking system is in place, etc.
I'm sorry of course that we failed to answer your question, I certainly tried to answer all the ones I was handed in that time frame, and believe I did an acceptable job at it.
Best of luck with whatever distribution you use.
-josh
SUSE's searchable support database is your best
bet when the search in the READMEs/HOWTOs is
exhausted and even Deja scan didn't resolve the problem.
I'll never forget the moment, when I found a
solution for a problem (ISDN driver didn't
change charge interval) in the SuSE support
database for my Redhat Linux 5.1 setup.
This happened after two days of reading docs
(the 110k isdn README contained the word 'Attention!'
more than incredible 40 times), compiling various
package releases, searching news
groups, searching Red Hat's support database
(official RH ISDN support was non existant at this
time).
The solution was that if a (seemingly unrelated
variable) was not defined in a config file, the
thing didn't work.
To be sure that I hadn't missed the solution,
I later grepped the 110 k docu and the FAQ which
came with that software package for thar variable
name. Nothing.
This adventure may be insignificant for the casual
reader, but for me it was like finding water in
the desert after a two day march. So once the SuSE
support database has saved my (emotional) life.
Thank you SuSE people for your professional
attitude.
And this is the reason I feel happy seeing SuSE
getting even more fuel which will help them to
provide even better support.
Go SuSE, Go Linux!
I'm curious, where is it mentioned what is or isn't covered by SuSE's 60-day installation support?
They tout SuSE Linux' networking capabilities right on the box and I would find it strange if they didn't support basic outta-box ppp connectivity (which "installed" alright but was broken).
Apart from my experience that "SuSE Technical Service" didn't get back to me despite their automated reply said so I don't think that support which doesn't cover getting online by ordinary ppp is adequate for new users.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
I have 6.1 and their email support
and user mailing list were very very
helpful to this newbie.
I would definitely recommend SuSE.
I look forward to 6.3!!
...that Penguin Computing still sells AMD systems; Compaq sells Alphas running Linux; Apple still sells PowerPC systems that are Linux-compatible; and that you can still by SPARC stations from Sun or for cheap from many auction houses and hardware resellers.
The Kulturwehrmacht
Finding God in a Dog
ppp is supported. I've called ISPs with the customer on the line to explain to them what is misconfigured in their routers. Of course, it's usually much more simple than that....
As for kppp the reason you had a problem is this: Some dialer software locks the modem device. Some dialer software expects the ppp daemon to lock the modem device. The former is more "proper"... but the dialer developers probably have their own reasons (cross-platform issues perhaps?).
One solution would be for the dialer to always have the responsibility, and either have to run pppd with the 'lock' option, or lock the device itself. This requires custom patches to many dialers. These patches must be maintained, and are in some cases, messy.
Another solution would be to have more than one ppp configuration file. I'm not even going to discuss how messy this is.
The decision was to leave well enough alone, and let the configuration file /etc/ppp/options be set up to work with the majority of dialer software, and for kppp users to comment out the 'lock' line if they wished to use kppp. You see, kppp isn't even our recommended solution. The manual pretty clearly states wvdial is the recommended way to do it, and includes step-by-step instructions. In 6.2, it's even easier, as there's a straightforward configuration screen in YaST called Configure a PPP Network.
Why do we push people away from kppp? For 2 main reasons.
Depending upon my memory, the other problem you could have been running into was kppp simply failing to work at all periodically. This was a kppp bug, and an update to it was available on the FTP site.
toodles.
-josh
I did search through their DB as suggested by the "auto-mail" but nothing there applied to the v6.1 problem I was facing - at least at that time. Went even as far as crawling through the german-language entries! :-)
;-)
Good to see that most replies are positive. According to an AC claiming to belong to SuSE tech support the company apparently boosted their support capabilities some time after I had given up.
Anyway, I wasn't bashing SuSE here but simply trying to point out that support is very important and it'll only become more so as new users begin entering the platform. Perhaps I was afraid that none of the Intel investment was going to address that issue.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
They've done some great stuff, but not recently. The last version of coreldraw I used (a couple years ago) on winderz was not stable enough to get the AC Stamp of Software Approval. Like, I'd do pretty normal stuff in the GUI (right-clicking, as I recall, was a big offender) and it'd GPF. The quality was sub-Microsoft. It just wasn't ready for release.
Corel is, in general, flailing around. I'd like to see them get their act together (companies have turned around before, after all), and I wish I could say I was counting on it, but I'm not.
Of course, my only experience with SuSE was 5.3, where the installer kept crashing on me. But they're up to what, 6.2 now or something? I expect the problem's been fixed by now. (I dunno what the problem was, I didn't bother their tech support. I just got pissed off and went out and bought Red Hat 5.2).
I really think Red Hat should pay more attention to the end-luser market (e.g. moi). They've got the brand equity and the capital to make it work.
I have to agree, wvdial absolutely rocks! OTOH, yast/suseconfig makes me wish I was running slackware. :( I accidentally typed a character into the hostname field in yast, couldn't remove it. When suseconfig got done, every file that mentioned the hostname was changed, but I couldn't change them back with yast. I had to change em all manually, including a new sendmail.cf.
I installed SuSE 6.0 some time ago and all went well except the DHCP kept dropping me. So I called the 1-800 number & talked to a very nice guy (Hi Norm!) who couldn't quite solve my problem. He reported that no one else ever seemed to have a problem with it, and suggested that maybe my ISP had weirdo settings on their server. While there was no solution for me (i figured it out later on me own), I still thought SuSE support was pretty good. Norm took his time & tried to get a solution (even called me back twice), so I'm giving points for effort.
The wintel alliance has been dead for quite some time. Microsoft doesn't much care of Intel, Intel doesn't like Microsoft. In a way, Intel and Microsoft are actually competitors.
If Intel gets a monopoly, the price of CPUs goes up, and PC-sales go down a bit. Allmost every PC comes bundeled with Windows, so Windows sales will also be hurt. That is why Microsoft insisted that Intel licence the MMX-instructions to competing CPU manufacturers. Microsoft wants and needs competion - in every area but their own.
And it also works the other way. If Microsoft gets a monopoly (hmm..), it will hike up prices, PC sales go down a bit and Intel sells less CPUs. That is why Intel is investing in competing operating systems.
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Hi!
Hey, the qoute of the day says:
:-)
"I have a TINY BOWL in my HEAD"
Couldnt that be a new field of operation for you ?!
I run SuSE on my intel box at home. It's great and definatley worth the 6 cd's that 6.2 ships on. However, I heard a rumor that they were working on a PPC port? That's quite cool--it'd like to dual boot my powerbook. Are these rumors founded (ie has anyone else heard this?) and if so, what does intel's investment mean to this?
My other computer is your Windows box