03.27.10
Novell News Summary – Part II: SUSE (SLES/SLED) in BrainShare 2010, Samsung and Kyocera With Android
Summary: News about companies that pay Microsoft for Linux for no good reason
WITH the opening of BrainShare came some announcements that refer or relate to SUSE. The Ingres news, for example, continues to make an appearance [1, 2] and so does the recent news about GroundWork and SLES.
Built on Novell’s SLES powered Virtual Appliance, the Zendesk Connector, plus GWOS’s Enterprise Quickstart is available for $299 for a one-year subscription. This package is built on the popular Novell SUSE powered virtual appliance, which has been sold to 100 GWOS customers within the first 97 days after launch.
More on Ingres and SUSE appliances in general:
Novell’s SUSE Linux software appliance strategy has attracted key partners — including GroundWork Open Source, Ingres and Zmanda — to the SUSE party. Next up, Novell will turn its SUSE Linux attention to enterprise developers, according to Novell Channel Chief John Dragoon (pictured).
SLES can also be found in this new article.
IBM slapped 256 GB of main memory in the box and booted up 32 JVMs using the native 32-bit JVM for AIX; the machine was able to handle 2,478,929 BOPS, or about 77,467 BOPS per JVM, compared to 61,014 BOPS per JVM on the i 6.1.1 setup. The same fully loaded Power 750 configured with Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 operating system, using IBM’s own 32-bit JVM for Linux and running 32 JVMs, was able to handle 2,410,483 BOPS, or 75,328 BOPS per JVM.
SUSE forms a relationship with Blue Lance:
Blue Lance, Inc. announced the immediate availability of LT Auditor+ 9 for SUSE Linux, allowing organizations to monitor and report on user activity surrounding changes to Novell’s eDirectory and the NSS file system. The new release consists of two products:
Coming out of BrainShare 2010 we have the following two new videos.
SLED or OpenSUSE is still available on the Shuttle, whose latest step got covered by eWEEK (also found in here).
Shuttle announced a compact, all-in-one PC featuring a 15.6-inch touchscreen and a dual-core Intel Atom D510 available with SUSE Linux. The X50V2 includes a 1366 x 768 display, webcam, 4-in-1 card reader, a 2.5-inch hard drive bay, and up to 4GB of RAM, says the company.
The question on many people’s minds now that Novell is up for sale was the fate of Novell (PR message) not just as a company and community but also as a GNU/Linux vendor.
What a contrast Red Hat makes with Novell, which might bring in more money each quarter but whose Linux business is much smaller and has just hit break-even in its fiscal 2010 first quarter ended in January. Novell has close to $1bn in the bank and has rejected what amounts to a $940m takeover deal (net of cash) from hedge fund operator Elliott Partners. Red Hat is the better buy, but with a market capitalization of $5.7bn and a multiple that probably makes it worth at least $10bn the way Wall Street thinks, Elliott doesn’t have the cash to buy Red Hat. And maybe no one else does either.
Novell’s situation was also covered in the following video.
Other coverage on this issue (not mentioned yet):
• Novell Acquisition Bidding Stalls
The company’s directors are hoping another firm will make a purchase offer above Elliot Associates’ $2 billion bid to acquire Novell.
• Linux business key to Novell sale
Novell’s brand value has diminished in the past decade with its legacy enterprise networking product Netware losing market share to rivals. It is often perceived as a company that lost out to Microsoft in the operating systems war.
[...]
“We expect double-digit number of strategic buyers will take a look at this,” said Brad Zelnick, analyst at Macquarie Equities Research and ex-employee of Novell.
WALTHAM – Novell Inc. of Waltham said it is looking at a possible sale of the company after rejecting an unsolicited takeover. Over the weekend, Novell turned down Elliott Associates’ buyout offer, valued at roughly $2 billion. The software company said Elliott’s offer undervalues the company’s growth prospects.
• Novell Is Looking for a Buyer After Rebuffing a $2 Billion Offer
This was also mentioned again in Reuters and several other places. It’s very major.
Samsung and Kyocera
“Bada” turns out to be Android-based, which isn’t particularly good for Google because Samsung pays Microsoft for Linux.
Like the Samsung Wave, a smartphone running Samsung’s home-grown, “Bada” operating system, the Android-based Galaxy S offers an unnamed 1GHz processor. Several industry reports have suggested it’s a Samsung processor, which would make sense. Our guess for both phones is the Cortex-A8-based, 45nm-fabricated S5PC110.
A few days ago we mentioned Kyocera because it’s another example of a company that probably pays Microsoft for Android.
Kyocera Communications announced its first Android phone, aiming at the mid-range of the market. The Kyocera Zio M6000 is equipped with a Qualcomm MSM7627 SoC and 3.5-inch WVGA display, plus WiFi, aGPS, Bluetooth 2.0, a 3.2-megapixel, video-ready camera, and up to six hours of talk time, says the company.
These dealings are not beneficial to Linux because they give the false impression that Microsoft owns Android in some way. █
