Novell bid to cannibalise Linux market

Sam Varghese
Friday, 14 November 2008 04:13

Opinion and Analysis

By 2005, the spark seemed to have died out. In November 2005, Novell had to sack 600 staff, more than 10 percent of its worldwide workforce at the time.

Then SUSE Linux founder Hubert Mantel quit the company, declaring that after being acquired, "this is no longer the company I founded 13 years ago." Mantel has since rejoined the firm in December 2006.

The same year, SUSE channel chief Petra Heinrich and former Novell Europe, Middle East and Asia president and onetime SUSE president Richard Seibt.

SUSE has resonance for the entire Linux community - its founders put out the first commercial Linux distribution, Soft Landing System Linux, way back in 1992.

In November 2006, Novell decided that the best way to make headway in the Linux market was to sign a patent deal with Microsoft. Plenty has been said about this deal, so let me just stop after saying that this was probably the worst way to make inroads into the open source community.

Predictably, the deal has done little to improve Novell's financial situation. In fact, it looks as though it may have pushed people who were with SUSE to migrate to Red Hat.

Earlier this year, there was evidence that things were not exactly rosy at Novell, with Microsoft deciding to invest an additional $100 million for the purchase of certificates which customers could redeem for SUSE Linux service and support.

Back to the announcement ; some of the prose employed tells its own tale. Justin Steinman, vice-president of Solution and Product Marketing at Novell, is quoted as saying: “As the Linux market matures, we are increasingly being approached by customers who want to move to SUSE Linux Enterprise, attracted by Novell's award-winning support, superb interoperability in mixed-source environments, and by our support for mission critical applications."

The Linux market matured a long time back and if one has to cite awards to justify one's competence in the field of operating systems, then one is really beginning to clutch at straws.

And as to mission critical applications, is he trying to say that Red Hat does not offer equal - and, in my opinion, better - support?

Red Hat has wisely chosen to stay mum. I am sure that the people at the top knew quite well what kind of reaction this Novell marketing manoeuvre would bring forth.

What's next, Novell? Lehman Brothers share certificates for those who buy SUSE Linux?