04.19.08
Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part II: Linux Announcements and SUSE Linux Business at Novell (Corrected)
Various bits of news on these topics have emerged, but some of them contain repetition, so headlines and groupings are used below (it’s not sorted chronologically).
Kerala and SUSE
Kerala said it would settle on a Debian derivative and later spoke about the use of Fedora. The following new piece seems to indicate that they also experiment with SUSE, just like Tamil Nadu. [Correction: It is a coincidentally deceiving typo. Watch the comments at the bottom.]
KANNUR: A national seminar on land use planning will be organised in Thiruvananthapuram under the auspices of the Kerala State Land Use Board on April 28 and 29.
Hewlett-Packard and SUSE
The previous post linked to a good shot from one the the developers. Here is some more technical coverage.
Review: HP 2133 Mini-Not
[…]
The $499 model is the most Eee-like: It runs Novell Suse Linux instead of Windows and has a 4GB solid-state drive instead of a hard disk. Its modest 512MB of memory and 1.0GHz VIA C7-M processor ensure its entry-level status, although budget buyers enjoy the same spacious keyboard and screen as their deeper-pocketed peers.
Next up are a pair of twins–two Mini-Notes with a 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 120GB (5,400-rpm) hard drive, as well as the 802.11b/g WiFi and three-cell lithium-ion battery pack seen in the $499 config. The difference is that the $549 model comes with Suse Linux, the $599 unit with Vista Home Basic.
Embedded SUSE
The Var Guy, sometimes abbreviated to just “Joe”, has published and promoted this short piece advising Novell to look at the embedded space.
Let’s be clear: Novell SuSE Linux has reasonable momentum on desktops and servers, but Novell won’t topple Windows in those markets. Not now. Not five years from now. Microsoft’s biggest Linux worry remains Red Hat.
Still, there’s a market niche where Novell could give Microsoft really big headaches. It’s the embedded software market, where SuSE Linux Enterprise Real Time and SuSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service (not exactly embedded, but stick with The VAR Guy) are promising offerings.
There is a lot that Var Guy could be told about this subject, including the fact that this market is hugely crowded with well-established embedded Linux companies. His suggestion would seem interesting but unrealistic for the same reasons that Red Hat stays out of enterprise desktops — for now.
SUSE Servers
First press release from Novell in a while:
To further help customers experience the benefits of Linux* on the mainframe, Novell today announced simplified pricing and discounts throughout 2008 for SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server for IBM’s System z mainframes. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z lets customers consolidate distributed workloads onto System z servers to help minimize costs, reduce downtime and data center complexity, and increase flexibility.
This actually came out shortly after some fairly major announcements from IBM, to which the above is tied.
An article soon followed to strip off the promotional verbage and jargon:
Novell Cuts Pricing for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on IBM System z
Novell Inc. has announced simplified pricing and discounts throughout 2008 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for IBM’s System z mainframes, to further help customers experience the benefits of Linux on the mainframe.
BetaNews had an article about this also.
SUSE Appliances
Another press release was then published, but it sounded familiar.
Novell Announces SUSE Appliance Program
Novell today announced the creation of the SUSE(R) Appliance Program to enable independent software vendors (ISVs) to create appliances combining their applications with the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform in one integrated package for end-customer deployment.
This was already mentioned in BrainShare on several occasions if not very many occasions [1, 2, 3, 4] Here is a newer article about it:
Novell invites vendors to build software appliances atop SUSE Linux
To make it easier for its customers to deploy new applications on virtualized or standard servers, Novell Inc.’s SUSE Linux division is jumping into the software appliance wave.
Sean Michael Kerner read this differently:
Novell: ‘The Stand-alone OS Is Dead
The company becomes the latest Linux vendor to push into the appliance space, unveiling a new program to attract ISVs.
Heise Online covered this without a sensationalist headline.
With SuSE Linux Enterprise JeOS, Novell is entering a growing market of providers.
John Fontana at Network World also published a nice and balanced article.
Novell Wednesday released the beta of its new “Just Enough” SUSE operating system targeted as a platform for Linux-based appliances.
Speaking of BrainShare 2008 where this was initially (yet only implicitly) announced between the lines, there’s a new low-quality video of a concert from this year’s BrainShare. It was uploaded to the Web just a couple of days ago. For what it’s worth, here it is.
As always, if you haven’t interest in these Saturday postings, please systematically skip/filter/ignore them. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
LinuxIsFun said,
April 19, 2008 at 8:48 am
Seminar on land suse planning
KANNUR: A national seminar on land use planning will be organised in Thiruvananthapuram under the auspices of the Kerala State
Hey it is a typo. Its not “suse” but “use”
btw nothing to do with suse “)
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 19, 2008 at 8:56 am
I was wondering about this one as well. I couldn’t figure out why it was all lowercase. I’ll post a correction.