Summary: Red Hat plants a flag in Germany when SUSE loses momentum and status

SUSE, the only Microsoft-approved brand of GNU/Linux (because Microsoft is paid for its use), has been bragging about German deployments, as we noted quite recently (SUSE/Microsoft tax polluting HPC). In Germany, however, large companies still use Red Hat too. Red Hat sought to make it clear with a press release:

German manufacturing firm updates IT systems with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

Red Hat Inc., provider of open source solutions, has announced that Ferrotec, a vendor of technologies based on the magnetic liquid Ferrofluid used in multi-phase motors, dampers for shaft ends and transformer cooling, has deployed Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization at the core of its infrastructure. Through this Red Hat technology combination, Ferrotec is increasing scalability, flexibility and performance while lowering operating costs.

Headquartered in Japan, the Ferrotec Group also has a large presence throughout Europe. In line with the company’s growth and additional business requirements, its IT infrastructure expanded with the purchase of new servers and an increase in memory capacity. As the company's IT systems peaked, performance began to decrease, creating the need for a modern technology infrastructure to meet Ferrotec’s business demands.

For many in Germany, SUSE is sometimes perceived as supporting the Germans; in reality, SUSE is supporting Microsoft. It is time to shun SUSE even in Germany. OpenSUSE has lost its edge anyway, and to make matters worse, it became an extension of Microsoft. ⬆

"Asked how small software companies could compete on products that Microsoft wants to fold into Windows, [Microsoft COO Bob] Herbold told Bloomberg News they could either fight a losing battle, sell out to Microsoft or a larger company or 'not go into business to begin with.'"

--Newsweek, March 1998