Several irate readers asked The VAR Guy to defend Novell after they spotted a blog entry on Linux Planet titled, “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server — the Pointless Linux?” Of course, The VAR Guy doesn’t play favorites. He doesn’t care whether Red Hat or Novell lead the Linux race. But our resident blogger can’t remain silent. A partner ecosystem without Novell and SUSE Linux is somewhat dangerous to imagine. Here’s why.
Consider the situation at IBM. Big Blue purposely backs Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell SUSE Linux. Why? Because IBM does NOT want the modern day Linux world to resemble the Windows world we all lived in during the 1990s.
When Microsoft had a lock on the desktop and started throwing its weight around the server, hardware companies were at the mercy of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Remember: The VAR Guy was a big fan of Windows NT, and he continues to recommend Small Business Server. But Microsoft’s monopolistic practices in the 1990s were scary.
The New Red Scare?
Fast forward to the present day, and Red Hat could become dangerously dominant without healthy competition from Canonical’s Ubuntu distribution and Novell’s SUSE Linux. To be sure, Red Hat remains innovative and channel friendly — driving more and more Linux and JBoss middleware sales through partners. And The VAR Guy doesn’t sense any arrogance from Red Hat.
But remember: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Without Novell providing checks and balances, Red Hat could either (A) grow arrogant or (B) grow lazy. When either of those two items happen, innovation stalls or prices rise — or both.
The Microsoft Connection
Meanwhile, some folks still allege that Novell is nothing more than a propped up company controlled by Microsoft.
Yes, Novell is a flawed company in many respects. Too many legacy products. Too many point products that don’t add up to complete solutions. Too many years moving away from the channel (though that’s starting to change…).
The VAR Guy wasn’t a big fan of the Microsoft-Novell deal when it happened. But there again, remember: IBM was working with Novell long before the Microsoft-Novell relationship came along.
And in meeting after meeting, IBM insiders say they gain leverage and flexibility in the Linux market by supporting both Red Hat and Novell. That’s why Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and other industry heavyweights also support both Red Hat and Novell.
Microsoft may buy SUSE Linux licenses — but that doesn’t buy Novell any ISV and hardware partner support. Novell has earned that support by developing a Linux distribution that many customers demand.
So go ahead, Linux Planet: Ask the world “What’s the Point of Novell SUSE Linux?” Readers already have the answer, because they understand how fierce competition drives innovation and lower prices.
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Personally, I hope we do get a Linux juggernaut. It would do wonders for standardization in the Linux market and make the platform easier to develop for. I wouldn’t worry about competition until Linux is firmly entrenched on desktops and in enterprise deployments worldwide.
Last time I checked, GNU/Linux was entrenched on desktops and in enterprise deployments…
The juggernaut is not owned by any one distro. RedHat and Novell have a lot of clout in North America and Europe but several other distros are very active in other regions:
Germany is a hotbed for Debian.
China has RedFlag/TurboLinux.
Spain has Guadalinex.
France and Brazil have Mandriva.
The big consideration is that the world is diverse and any language/culture may adopt a distro as its own. GNU/Linux does work better in diversity than that other OS which is Redmond-centric. There is no good reason a single entity should have undue influence on the world’s IT.
While you make a lot of good and important points, I don’t believe you read the Linux planet article past the headline. The article didn’t say SUSE should just go away or that we don’t need it. Rather, it postulates that Novell is too weak and ineffective for SLES to be a significant competitor against Windows, and doubly so since Novell’s buddying up to Microsoft. I think we’re all familiar with Novell’s amazing inability to market effectively, going all the way to when Netware was far better and cheaper than Windows, yet Windows ate their lunch, and has been ever since.
To benfrank and others:
I think we need to stop repeating the garbage that Netware was better than Windows. The facts are that netware was a better product for its time but the world changed and the IT world require something different and Windows provided that.
Netware was a specialized product that was poor at becoming a generalized operating system It had no real development tools or application ecosystem.
2) Microsoft ate everybodies lunch included IBM, Sun, HP,CA Lotus, Ashtontate, UNIX, Wordperfect, Hardvard Graphic, Apple. I could continue.
Of course Novell did not help itself when it followed the direct sales crowd and decimated is partner program. But that is no different from any other company that exist at the time.
3) I think for does who think Sles is not relevant they might want to crunch the number for who leads in the high end Linux market.
The world is changing once again.
I am continually amazed by the technical brilliance of the open source crowd but I am equally as shock by the complete absence of long term strategic thinking when it comes to business.
The Datamation article is nothing more than a hack job and a pre-emptive strike because the new version of SLES is about to be announced.It is one thing to have a disagreement with the member of the family it is another thing to try and complete destroy that member. People such as Matt Assay and Alfresco will one day be in this same position because the open source brown shirt soldiers will not tolerate any dissent from their point of view.
I do not contribute to the open source movement but do observe the politics of the movement and it seems that those who contribute the most is the least virulent but their is a class of supporter who based on my observartion use the movement support their need for personal power and glorification.
Var Guy,
It was a modified sensationalist headline. Linux Planet reposted another article with a different heading.
I agree Red Hat needs competition to give checks and balances, but Ubuntu does a much better job then SUSE.
1. SUSE needs to die.
2. Ubuntu needs to provide the checks and balances to Red Hat.
3. Linux would be best served as a two party system with Red Hat and Ubuntu representing the dominant parities.
Roy: Nice to see Linux Planet re-writing their own history… But thanks for the heads up. Our resident blogger did not notice the change.
Novell was with Novell Open Enterprise, Zenworks for Windows and Linux and a couple of other products lined up to be able to grab a significant untapped market all over the world. The market i talk about is having a central server product line that can make Windows, Apple and Linux distributions work in the same network enabling users to mingle and admins to care for the systems easily.
Very sadly they fumbled bigtime on this market by stupidity unheard of bt going instead for an already pretty saturated and heavily fought for space in computing, the datacenter. Their stubborn refusal to support any other Linux than SUSE with clients hasnt really drawn in Linux users like flies either. If im stuck in a windows enviroment fighting for life getting out im sure as heck not about to lock myself into SLES/SLED and giving Novell the key.
Sometimes i wonder if Microsoft is pulling the strings 100% at Novell but then again never attribute to malice what can be described by utter incompetence.
This article is pretty daft. There is no way that Red Hat can become a new Microsoft because it doesn’t use proprietary software to lock people in. If the pressure gets too great then people will jump on the CentOS or other bandwagon and equalise any imbalance a more dominant Red Hat might cause. Competitors are free to use anything that Red Hat is investing in such as KVM, JBoss or Red Hat Directory Server without fear if being at a an interoperability loss. I thought this had been covered umpteen times before? If neither Novell nor anyone else can do what Red Hat is doing with the same software and code then it’s their problem.
As for SLES, I don’t really see the point in it. It’s yet another Linux distribution in the face of competition with Red Hat when to compete with Red Hat you have to invest smarter in open source technologies that will give you an advantage. SLES should be the new Netware replacement everyone can get excited about with open sourced features from Netware integrated into Linux and great managament tools that should enable it to compete beyond Red Hat and with Windows Server. SLES just diverts Novell’s efforts from where they should be concentrating them. As with Sun, Novell are a company that simply doesn’t know what it’s about even when hard code and functionality is sitting out there, already written, staring them in the face. The grains of sand are running out.
Are people really demanding Suse Linux? No they’re not. Much of Novell’s Suse sales are from Suse’s already established and dwindling position and the scraps from their Netware customers. Novell’s Suse sales are a drop in the ocean when compared with Red Hat. Demand for SLES is pretty exagerrated when you look at the figures.
@Daniel
“The market i talk about is having a central server product line that can make Windows, Apple and Linux distributions work in the same network enabling users to mingle and admins to care for the systems easily.”
Can’t disagree there, although Novell has to put its strategic hat on when dealing with Windows systems and ensure that they don’t get outflanked by new Microsoft software by ensuring that people want to move to Suse and Novell technology. That’s what happened with the whole Netware -> NT switch that went on. Microsoft supported Netware technology, made people want to switch to NT by making things far easier to set up and then cut off the air supply.
Alas, this flies right over the heads of Novell execs.
“Their stubborn refusal to support any other Linux than SUSE with clients hasnt really drawn in Linux users like flies either.”
That actually wouldn’t be so bad if there was something innovative in Suse that Novell was driving that would make people switch. The fact that you’re complaining that Novell won’t support anything else apart from Suse tells me that you don’t think so and shows what position they’re in. Red Hat certainly isn’t going out of its way to support Suse, but no one really seems to care.
Just a bit more Novell bashing -
By-the-by, can anybody explain why a patch subscription for a single SLES10 system and up to 32 sockets and Xen sells for about $400 while patches for a RHEL5 box with the same capabilities sells for about $1,500? Is RHEL5 really about 4 times better that SLES10?
Also, can anybody show me how to easily download a copy of RHEL5 for evaluation without buying it? For SLES10 go to Novell’s web page, create a free account and download away!
Looks to me that Red Hat has already learned lots from Novell.
Let the pointless bashing continue.
Sorry blew that one – I really meant to say….
Looks to me that Red Hat has already learned lots from Microsoft!
Now let the pointless bashing really get going!!!!
VAR Guy: reposted from Datamation/ServerWatch.
mwfolsom, centos is $0. Is sles 10 really infinitely better (ie, $400 better)?
If you want to use RHELvX for no charge, you can probably come very very close by getting and installing the appropriate centos version for $0. And you don’t even have to create a free account before downloading.
Var-to-be, a lot of people reject partnering with Monopolysoft to the extent Novell has done. We don’t want one company leveraging its monopolies to dominate commercial Linux. That would make it more difficult for free Linux to remain competitive. Novell has chosen to partner with the wrong company. They value that relationship more than the relationship with the Linux community, and those two relationships are at odds. Microsoft has nothing but to lose from free Linux. Losing platform monopolies is not just losing marketshare but is also losing powerful market levers. Maybe Novell will change in a few years when their contract expires. Also, Novell is primarily a closed source company. They also didn’t open up Suse (add to the Linux ecosystem), they bought it (seized ownership of it). Microsoft needed a proxy to buy a Linux for them. Novell anticipated that need and has been delivering ever since: to embrace, extend, and extinguish.
Sometimes I can’t help but laugh at the Linux zealots who firmly entrench themselves in one camp or the other and only certain distributions have the right to exist and they must all be called Linux.
Just the other day I was told off for refering to Ubuntu simply as Ubuntu and not Ubuntu Linux or even just Linux. Apparently “Linux” has more meaning to those not in the know? Flawed logic I think.
And I think that is what is being applied here. Novell has had a love hate relationship with Microsoft since before Linux was created. Why wouldn’t deal with Microsoft? Why does dealing with Microsoft mean any distribution has to die? Because Microsoft is an evil empire? No it’s not. It’s an American corporation doing business by the rules all big American corporations play by.
They do whatever they can to dominate a market and use that domination to beat everybody else into submission. Then hope and pray they get away with it. Then they buy everyone off and get ready for another round of the same.
Choice is a good thing. We need many strong Linux based OSs all with their strengths.
@aikiwolfie: “It’s an American corporation doing business by the rules all big American corporations play by.”
That is the problem. Unethical business behaviour is considered normal and gets a free pass. American corporations doing business in this fashion will continue to expire ‘lest they come up with external revenue to keep afloat.
Well if America wants to fix that problem it needs to change it’s whole corporate business culture. Otherwise it’ll just be a never ending vicious circle. Companies like IBM seem to have adapted just fine. If anything they seem to be applying the lessons they’ve learned doing business in Europe to their American markets and partners and it seems to be working for them.
Aikiwolfie: Can you give us some examples of European best practices that are benefiting American markets and partners? You make an intriguing assertion and The VAR Guy would like to hear more.
var-to-be kinda hit the nail on the head here. Go back to the turn of the century and the release of Windows 2000 the first product Microsoft released that was designed for the enterprise networking environment. Small Novell VARs were confused when Novell made CDW the exclusive buy-it-now link on the Novell website. Novell was buying consulting companies like Cambridge. Up to this point Novell had the only enterprise product, but when Windows 2000 came out it presented an opportunity to the small VAR to sell something else and at a better margin. Back then Microsoft was real accomodating with small VARs, especially those that had concerns regarding Novell’s sales tactics and provided incentives to small VARs to migrate their Novell customers onto Microsoft platforms. I don’t know if Novell intended to go into the direct sales model or not, but I knew that the air I had tasted and breathed had taken a turn.