Novell Suse Linux is positioning itself to be the corporate Linux of choice for today's multi-OS corporation thanks to a series of agreements with companies such as SAP and Microsoft.
In particular Novell is interested in the government sector in Asia, which features large scale deployments where a full-featured desktop may not be necessary.
Speaking recently in Bangkok, Novell executive vice president for worldwide sales, Thomas Francese, and Maarten Kostner, president for Asia-Pacific, explained the evolution of Novell from a Netware company through to its Groupwise workgroup, which still has a loyal following, all the way to today's systems resource management, identity management and security management and one of the most talked-about Linux distributions. A copy of its Suse Linux is said to be download every six seconds.
"We're an information infrastructure company. We are different from RedHat in that we deliver up the stack--security, systems management, virtualization--and we are more than just open source," Francese explained.
Today the greening of the data centre is a cool topic and Francese claims that Suse Linux offers the deepest shade of green in the industry thanks to its advanced virtualization features that help system administrators to consolidate servers.
By signing a cross licensing agreement not to sue over intellectual property, any corporation using Suse Linux will be protected from potential Microsoft lawsuits over intellectual property in the Linux source code.
Many in the open source community have branded this as "doing a deal with the devil" and today Suse Linux is the only Linux endorsed by Microsoft. So how does Novell explain what happened?
"Everyone is using Linux. You cannot go into a corporation and not find Linux. We are helping those customers. With the Microsoft arrangement there is no risk [from IP related lawsuits]," Francese said, not getting into the religious or emotional aspects of the agreement.
While companies like Oracle also offer indemnity through its Unbreakable Linux offering, the boss of Novell obviously does not see it as competition. "Oracle does not sell anything. Today if you are in the marketplace, Oracle is not a player in Linux. Generally speaking, it comes down to RedHat and Novell," he said. "In the data centre we are clearly there. In the desktop, Dell China? RedFlag's no more. Dell China runs the Novell Desktop. Lenovo also comes with the Suse Desktop."
And Canonical's Ubuntu? "From a business standpoint it isn't the way to go. There are indications they need something more solid like Suse. That's why they [Dell, who has long offered Ubuntu on the desktop] have chosen us to move into China and replace RedFlag, not Ubuntu. The market speaks," Francese claimed.
Koster added that Ubuntu was fine for the lower end of the market, but it was not a segment Novell played in.
Francese said that between 80 to 95 percent of IBM Z-series mainframes today ship with Suse Linux installed as the operating system of choice.
So how does Novell feel now that the Microsoft-backed Open XML format was rejected at ISO, especially since Suse Enterprise Linux comes with a version of Open Office--which supports both Open XML and Open Document Format? Francese sidestepped that question, saying only that Novell is committed to interoperability and has recently opened a new interoperability centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working with Microsoft IBM, SAP, Dell and "maybe even Oracle."
In Thailand, some of Novell's reference customers are Thai Airways and Assumption University. The Ministry of Interior is also of note, as it progressed from being a heritage customer using Netware through to security and today's OS stack.
The government sector is one where Novell is particularly strong. The Indian state of Tamil Nadu recently rolled out 2,000 servers and 40,000 desktops all based on Suse. Novell is also looking to the government sectors in China and Japan, as well as here in Thailand.
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