However, that’s the beauty of a blog — particularly this blog. The VAR Guy will always welcome feedback and constructive criticism. And The VAR Guy will eat crow when we’re wrong about specific points.

The VAR Guy is still a little confused in terms of Novell’s math, and the original Novell statement, which read:

“Based on publicly available information, SUSE Linux Enterprise 9 and 10 have the most certified software applications when compared to the latest releases of all other commercial Linux* distributions.”

Still, it’s great to hear from you. And regardless of what numbers you focus on, it is clear that Novell’s ISV base for SUSE Linux is growing rapidly. No debate there.

The Novell announcement actually compares SLE 9 & 10 to RHEL 4 & 5 not to RHEL 5 as stated in the BLOG. I realize RH posts applications certified all the way back to RHEL 2 but since its an important metric for platform providers and ISVs alike to migrate their customers forward to our most recent technologies, we chose to focus on the last two releases when posting applications. We could post more by reaching further back to SLE 6 & 7 but whats would be the point. Most of our customer are on 9 & 10.

That said, I really don’t see this as a race. We are simply trying to provide our customers with the finest ecosystem possible. If people want to count, so be it. I manage the group that builds and supports our OPS ISV ecosystem. Our goals are pretty straight forward; Make it as easy as possible for ISVs anywhere to deploy on our platform. We will continue to do this with our going forward releases.

‘The Novell Partners below are utilizing online electronic commerce to better serve you, making it faster and easier for you to purchase all Novell products.’ And the page lists their recommended online retailers: CDW, Insight, Softchoice, Softmart. (they don’t really explain how it is ‘easier’)

You get to this page by clicking: ‘How to Buy’ and then the icon of the shaking hands above the Buy from Distributor link. And then when you go the the ‘Buying Programs’ link it states: ‘By completing the form below, a Novell representative will contact you to provide the best pricing for your organization.’

As a small VAR we don’t think it necessary for our customers to buy their software from an online retailer, nor is our customer looking for the best price, but rather the best value. We can’t provide the best price, nor can we sell their solutions at the street price and make any margin. So we as an SMB reseller believed it necessary to do something and we figured it would be in our best interest (and the interest of the customer’s) to recommend the exact opposite of what Novell recommends. So we printed out the web site verbage, turned it upside down and looked at it through a mirror. Granted, it at first appeared to be just upside and backward letters, but we squinted our eyes real hard and found the answer. Other small resellers can try this at home. I would recommend the most liberal interpretation of what you see. Does it mean my company doesn’t recommend buying software from an online retailer? Does it mean sell Red Hat or Microsoft? Does it mean both or something else entirely? It all depends upon the eyes of the beholder…..

I expect bad things for Novell in the future based on this Microsoft relationship because Microsoft has _always_ acted in bad faith with regards to user freedom for all the years they’ve been in business. In contrast with Microsoft, the trend of other IT companies is to have more respect for users freedom and autonomy.

So when Novell say “all other commercial Linux* distributions”, who do you think they mean? Who are the other ‘commercial’ distributions??