The VAR Guy

As The VAR Guy suspected: Nearly a dozen software partners are set to rally around Novell’s SUSE Linux Appliance strategy at BrainShare, a customer and partner conference held this week in Utah. Here’s a look at the SUSE Linux partners — from Black Diamond to Zmanda — and the implications for Novell’s channel partners. Plus, a look at potential software appliance partners Novell still needs to recruit.

Linux redefined pricing in the operating system market. Now, Zmanda hopes to apply those same open source pricing pressures in the backup market. Zmanda claims that its backup system costs one-fifth to one-tenth as much as alternatives from Symantec and EMC. But is open source backup — at any price — ready for the enterprise?