02.14.09
Novell News Summary – Part II: SUSE on Desktops, Servers, Clouds, and in the Channel
Novell issued a press release and so did IBM, so SUSE was mentioned in quite a few places. In the spirit of investigating Novell stories without discrimination, the details that we found are all below.
SLED
H-P is still sticking with its bedmates with Redmond, but at least it offers the choice of GNU/Linux on some sub-notebooks, with SLED still on its agenda.
In the Mini 2140 system that it introduced last month, HP offers three operating systems for business users: XP Pro, Vista Business and Novell Inc.’s SUSE Enterprise Linux. No other netbook maker “supports business operating systems because, frankly, they are not being supported by Intel or Microsoft at all,” Thornton claimed. “We went out on a limb to put XP Pro and Vista Business on the 2140 and make sure it runs fine.”
At the same time, H-P is implementing, further exploring, hacking on and distributing Ubuntu. For those who use the HP Mini-Note 2133, an OpenSUSE Lizard offers some registration instructions.
So you just got an HP Mini-Note 2133 pre-loaded with SLED 10? Great, right?
Well… It’s not been so great for a lot of people. It seems that HP simply put this laptop together, half-assed a SLED load and sent it out into the wild. I’ve had a ton of problems with it, the two major ones being that I couldn’t register the machine with the Novell Customer Center (not even with my site license) it ships with a non-working wireless card.
One of the best things brought to GNU/Linux by SUSE was Compiz and it appears to have inspired even phone makers.
Sure, those incredibly similar menu icons are still there at the bottom, but that spinning cube is more Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop than iPhone. Novell’s been spinning their Linux desktop OS like a cube-shaped top for years, and this S-Class cube interface from LG reminded me of it today.
SLED|S receives some congratulations and praises from itself in the following new article.
After a year on loan as CTO at the Linux Foundation, Markus Rex has returned to Novell just in time to shepherd the final push for SUSE Linux Enterprise 11. Due for release in the next few months, SUSE 11 has been in the works for two years. Rex says SUSE 11 includes major improvements in virtualization, cloud computing and interoperability.
SLES
To say more on SLED|S, ZDNet Asia has an article which repeats the “interoperability” buzzword seen above.
On the other hand, there are “mixed source” vendors such as Novell, which preach interoperability.
Grant Smith, business unit lead for open platform solutions, Novell Asia-Pacific, said the industry is warming up to the notion that both open source and proprietary systems “will inevitably need to co-exist [because] IT managers rarely believe in a one-size-fits-all philosophy”
JeOS got some coverage over at IDG News Service and Novell’s SUSE was among the examples mentioned.
And Red Hat, Novell, and Ubuntu have all delivered stripped-down versions of their Linux distros for use in virtual appliances, several of which often run on one physical computer, so footprint becomes a key issue for them. Red Hat’s AOS (Application Operating System), for example, lets you run Linux Enterprise Edition apps unmodified in a portable virtual machine. And JeOS — which Ubuntu, Novell, and others offer — builds a stack that is ‘just enough’ to support that application by analyzing what APIs and library components need to be called for what functions.
Cloud
It all began with this press release is from IBM. There was a lot of coverage about this and although it was not centred solely on Novell/SUSE, much of it did allude to the role:
i. IBM lobs biz software at Amazon cloud
Today, IBM announced that it would be deploying a big piece of its database and middleware software stack on Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. The software that IBM is moving out to EC2 includes the company’s DB2 and Informix Dynamic Server relational databases, its WebSphere Portal and sMash mashup tools, and its Lotus Web Content Management program. This stack is being deployed on instances of Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, which is in turn deployed on EC2, which itself is based on Linux servers with Xen hypervisors providing virtual machine slices.
ii. IBM Allies With Amazon To Deliver Cloud Services
Sometime in the next few months, IBM will begin offering, on a beta trial basis, Amazon Machine Images of those same software products that customers and partners can use as a production environment to run their applications. That platform will include an image of Novell’s SUSE Linux on Amazon EC2, according to Mitchell. IBM and Amazon will charge a single hourly rate — yet to be set — for the entire hosting system.
iii. Amazon Partners With IBM On Cloud Services
In a move aimed at beefing up its cloud computing initiatives, IBM has joined forces with Amazon to offer its various software applications, including WebSphere Portal, Lotus web content management system, Informix Dynamic Server, DB2 database and Novell’s SUSE Linux operating system software, to clients and developers through cloud computing services from Amazon.
iv. IBM taps Amazon to expand the cloud
IBM has partnered with Amazon to offer software to clients and developers on Amazon Web Services (AWS) using a pay-as-you-go access model.
The initiative, which comes just a day after IBM launched a host of other cloud computing offerings, provides access to development and production versions of IBM’s Information Management database servers, Lotus content management and WebSphere portal at an hourly rate.
v. IBM Selects Amazon To Deliver Cloud Software
IBM has tapped Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to deliver software to clients and developers under a new pay-as-you-go model. The agreement will let Big Blue’s clients access IBM DB2, Informix Dynamic Server, WebSphere Portal, Lotus Web Content Management, WebSphere sMash, and Novell’s SUSE Linux operating system in the cloud.
Effective immediately, IBM will provide software developers with Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) without charge for development and test purposes. In the coming months, IBM intends to launch full production software images in beta, and eventually extend its cloud-computing portfolio to include service-management capabilities from IBM Tivoli software.
There are lots more that don’t necessarily mention Novell.
Channel
Novell intends to rely on its defunct channel now that it put forth the following press release (also here):
Novell today announced global channel program enhancements and leadership appointments marking key milestones in Novell’s return to a partner-centric business model. Based on partner feedback, the company enhanced its channel program to increase partner profitability and simplify doing business with Novell. The company also increased investments in sales, marketing and enablement support for partners. The new channel leadership roles and partner program improvements align with Novell’s growth objectives in data center, end-user computing and identity and security solutions.
The folks at CIOL (Indian press) just copied the press release and modified it slightly, as they so routinely do in this publication.
Novell announced its global channel program enhancements and leadership appointments marking key milestones in Novell’s return to a partner-centric business model. Based on partner feedback, the company enhanced its channel program to increase partner profitability and simplify doing business with Novell, stated a press release.
This was more properly covered in:
The Register: Tough times mean channel love for Novell
A lot of IT vendors make their numbers or don’t because of the efforts of their indirect sales channels. And when times are tough, the vendor has to take some of the economic heat off their channel partners so they don’t lose the people who actually interface with customers.
To that end, Novell has announced that it is rejiggering its channel partner program. The changes Novell has made, which were only discussed vaguely, suggest that – maybe – Novell has taken its channel for granted of late.
Var Guy: Novell’s Partner Program: More Than SUSE Linux
Seeking to be known as more than the SUSE Linux company, Novell today shed more light on its evolving partner program — which blankets the company’s complete product portfolio. The announcements tie together many of the clues Chief Marketing Officer John Dragoon provided to The VAR Guy back in January.
[...]
As previously announced, Novell channel chief Javier Colado will soon move into his new position as president, Novell EMEA. Within a few weeks Colado’s partner program responsibilities will transition to Dragoon.
Novell’s fan press caught up with this news about Novell’s channel as well.
Novell has announced enhancements to its global channel program to increase partner profitability and simplify doing business with Novell, which will also help the company return to a partner-centric business model.
Miscellany
Last week we mentioned SiCortex because of its Novell roots. We also saw Novell and SiCortex on a couple of occasions last year [1, 2] and here is what sticks these two together.
SiCortex has 84 employees and is headed up by CEO Chris Stone, a former Novell executive responsible for engineering and product management from 2002 to 2004.
There was coverage one year ago where Red Hat, which has the edge and lead over Novell, accused the latter of just piggybacking the work of others. Could this debate return any time soon because RT Linux is back?
Hoping to counterpunch archrival Novell in the real-time Linux market, Red Hat has shipped the second release of its Enterprise MRG Real-Time Linux.
[...]
Red Hat nemesis Novell is chasing this same market with its SUSE Linux Enterprise Real-Time product, a variant of its SLES 10. The two have been trying to best each other with lower levels of latency and higher throughput rates over the past year or two.
Novell’s self promotion in YouTube appears to be continuing as an account called NovellServices pushed this video in.
Speaking of Ballnux, a few days ago Todd Bishop mentioned Linspire, which he appears not to know is an acquired company now [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11].
Does anyone out there remember Lindows? The company, now known as Linspire, was sued by Microsoft for trademark infringment several years back because of the similarities between the name of its Linux-based operating system and Windows.
The trademark “Linspire” pretty much expired too. █
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