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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.
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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...
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
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.
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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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 :)
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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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
...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.
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