Comments on: Novell, Hewlett-Packard Push SUSE Linux for Schools

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:02:47 +0000

Scott, Brenda: Happy to see you’re able to make the connection here on TheVARguy.com.

Brenda: Please let us know about any projects you win, SUSE deployments, etc. The VAR Guy always like to hear about case studies and customer trends.

By: Scott Lewis

Scott Lewis — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:00:53 +0000

Brenda,one place you might try is the job board on Novell’s communities sites: http://www.novell.com/communities/jobs

The kinds of people you are looking for tend to participate in Novell’s Cool Solutions Community and many of the job’s that are posted in that forum seem to get a lot of reads.

By: Brenda

Brenda — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:27:54 +0000

We offer solutions to the SLED marketspace with most of them using Netware/Suse due to the inexpensive pricing for education.
The challenge we face: where do we find the talented traditional Netware engineers that also have the Suse skills we want to hire? We’ve engaged recruiters, Dice & Monster postings and word of mouth for months with limited results.
Any direction on how to find these people would be most helpful.
Thank You.

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 22:29:26 +0000

Mike St. Jean: Thanks for the perspective. The VAR Guy wishes Novell would get serious about GroupWise again and perhaps even open source it…

By: Mike St. Jean

Mike St. Jean — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:17:45 +0000

Our school district has tested SLED/OpenOffice. If we were a client-server network, then SLED would be the way to go. As it is we have about 30 Windows Terminal Servers pushing desktop and apps to approx 2000 Linux thin clients. We’ve become reliant on MS as the underpinnings of desktop and application delivery. However, despite our reliance on MS and MS compatible apps, Novell sets at our core.

Even though all you read about Novell lately is the negativity that swirls around its agreement with MS, you should know that Novell gives away the store to education. Through the Novell SLA we get unlimited SUSE or OES installs for .50 a student. GroupWise for .50 a student. ZENworks for .50 a student. You get the idea. As a mixed network taking a “best of breed and price” approach we welcome interoperability mixed with competition.

If in our environment, if we were to roll out Linux desktops, we would configure it ourselves, most likely removing a OEM installed OS. In this case I welcome vendors selling systems with no OS at a reduced price as opposed to packaging and OS that we will remove entirely or modify heavily.

By: Segedunum

Segedunum — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:59:01 +0000

“They see the value of a full supported OS from Novell.”

Do they? How many people do you think use SLED in the world versus Open Suse?

By: Segedunum

Segedunum — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:58:04 +0000

“The ISO installation is for geeks still. Most people do not install an OS. OEMs do that for them. Good move HP and Novell.”

Wrong, because you don’t address the base point as no one does. What motivates OEMs to install an OS and feel confident about installing it on everything? Usage. The size of the potential market. How do you get to that stage? Increase usage. You need to balance that equation.

The internet and the ISO image has provided a means where the usage of an OS can be increased dramatically and freely to the point where OEMs would actually take notice of it. You even get small OEMs downloading an ISO themselves and installing a Linux variant for people.

Novell has had OEM agreements for some years with regard to SLED, and unfortunately, it has not boosted its usage one iota. The above is why.

By: aikiwolfie

aikiwolfie — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:53:39 +0000

Actually I’d say the OEM installation is the way to go. Few people want to mess around with the bits that go boom. Both Novell and Canonical have the right idea. But they need to be more aggressive pushing their platforms to OEMs and software developers.

OpenSuSE has always been a good distro. The fact that Novell are going to be working on the software repository means schools can avoid the RPM hell SuSE can sometimes suffer from.

By: matthorany

matthorany — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:16:48 +0000

Segedunum… I agree with you to a point. But I think that customers who want SLED in their organizations are also people who have had an OpenSuSE ISO in their hands already. They see the value of a full supported OS from Novell. Way to go Novell. I’m happy to see they are on the right track to expand Linux

By: Robert Pogson

Robert Pogson — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:55:34 +0000

The ISO installation is for geeks still. Most people do not install an OS. OEMs do that for them. Good move HP and Novell.

By: Segedunum

Segedunum — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:55:50 +0000

If Novell hope to continue with traditional OEM channels in the way that Windows is put on PCs and charging a ‘fee’ then they simply don’t have a hope. Distributions like Ubuntu have taught us that open source software usage is fluid – you let people download an ISO from the internet, let its usage spread and work with OEMs within that sphere. Increased usage increases an OEM’s interest in what OS they put on their machines.

In addition, competing against a truly incumbent system like Windows within traditional OEM channels is going to fail as it has done on countless occasions in the past. Getting an ISO into the hands of as many people as possible is the only way to increase usage and make what you sell attractive whilst getting around OEM channel limitations, and that’s what Microsoft has been afraid of.