Novell is making The VAR Guy look pretty darn foolish. Our resident blogger keeps hyping Red Hat and Ubuntu Linux, yet Novell keeps scoring small victories and picking up momentum. The latest example: Micro-Star International (MSI) has agreed to pre-load Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on MSI’s mini-notebooks. Here’s the scoop.
The Novell-MSI deal calls for MSI to ship so-called “Wind netbooks” with SuSE Linux and OpenOffice.org later this summer. It’s a solid win for Novell, and a potential setback for Ubuntu Linux — which had hoped to dominate the emerging “netbook” industry.
Netbooks are small, low-cost, sub-notebooks built around Intel Atom processors. The Asus Eee PC (which The VAR Guy owns) is widely credited with paving the way for the emerging Netbook market.
Still, lets keep the Novell-MSI relationship in perspective. This isn’t a “winner take all” victory for Novell. The Wind (short for WiFi network device) will come in SuSE Linux and Windows versions. Hey, customer choice is good –right?
Eating More Crow
Meanwhile, Novell’s continued progress has The VAR Guy scratching his head. When Sun purchased MySQL, The VAR Guy in January 2008 openly wondered if ISV consolidation would mean doom for Novell’s open source strategy.
But by the end of February, Novell was delivering better-than-expected financial results and upbeat long-term profit forecasts.
Next up, Novell discussed its desktop Linux strategy with The VAR Guy in March. Our resident blogger wasn’t overly impressed. But once again, Novell has delivered a positive surprise — this time with the MSI relationship.
Hey, The VAR Guy isn’t suggesting that netbook sales will somehow drive Novell’s profits higher. But by building desktop and mobile mind share, Novell will help to solidify its open source market share. That, in turn, could keep CIOs and resellers coming back for more SuSE Linux.
Tags: Canonical | Desktop Linux | Intel Atom | Micro-Star International | Novell SuSE Linux | Red Hat Linux | Sub-notebook | Ubuntu | Wind Netbook
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It will be interesting to see your commentary and analysis of Novell if they are able to keep up these series of small steps and wins.
Thanks for the great, consistent content.
Richard: Thanks for weighing in. The VAR Guy doesn’t want to suggest that Novell has super momentum — the company still has its challenges plus Red Hat is pretty darn strong on the server.
But, in the US’s “winner take all” society,” we sometimes forget that there’s room for multiple companies in a specific IT market.
You keep saying “SuSE” but you really ought to be saying “Microsoft Linux.” What’s good for Novell is bad for Linux. This is how Microsoft takes over the Linux community and destroys it from the inside. Is this what we really want?
IGnatius: The VAR Guy thinks Novell made a mistake when it inked that Microsoft partnership. Portions of the open source community never forgave Novell. However, The VAR Guy doesn’t think Novell is in Microsoft’s pocket. And some CIOs have actually warmed up to Novell SuSE Linux because of the MSFT relationship.
Don’t forget there is also HP “mini-notebook” 2133 with preload SLED. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_2133_Mini-Note_PC . Hope to see more compatible laptops with Linux to come. Even without Novell preloads.
I agree that Novell made a mistake with the Microsoft deal, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. They are still producing great open source software and supporting the Linux community.
Another example of Novell/SuSE success is that Virtual Iron, a VMware-competitor, uses SLES as the base for their product.
Maybe there will be Linux sometime this year, but right now on the MSI web site it’s Windows XP only.
We’ll see.
Cabreh: Dig a little deeper on the site and you’ll notice a page that describes Windows and Linux versions, with Linux version apparently slated for delivery in late July.
Is it SLED 10 sp2 or OpenSUSE? Looks like SLED.. OpenSUSE is wayyyyyyyy better though. Come on, KDE4 and Netbook? yummy
According to the official statement from NOVL, it’s SLED