Attachmate reveals Novell, SUSE, & Linux Plans
Now that Attachmate owns Novell, what does the formerly obscure company plan to do with its $2.2-billion operating system and networking prize? I interviewed Attachmate via e-mail CEO Jeff Hawn and this is what he told me.
Before launching into the interview, I’ll note that most of Novell’s senior executive staff won’t be hanging around. Ron Hovsepian; President and CEO; Dana Russell, CFO; John Dragoon, CMO; and Markus Rex, SVP and General Manager of open platforms and long time SUSE leader have all left. So it is that Attachmate is starting with a clean management slate.
Basically, though, it doesn’t say too much. They plan on splitting off the businesses, have SUSE managed from Germany and leave things as-is for the most part for now.
Basically the canned response expect from any Executive the day after an acquisition.
What do you think/predict? Hear anything else about it other than random out of the ass conspiracy/doomsday guesses?
Personally I think it’s a great thing that they’re splitting Novell and SUSE. SUSE was (and remains) a German product, and one that’s renowned for it’s technical excellence.
Whether we like to admit it or not, the whole Novell - Microsoft licensing pact flew in the face of everything that SuSE originally stood for, it put a lot of peoples noses out of joint, and it went against the nature and intention of the FOSS movement.
I’d like to think we’re leaving that behind now, the “divorce” has been finalized and that chapter can be firmly placed in history. There are a lot of good people at Novell, - I hope that partnership can remain strong for all the good reasons despite some ugly times. I’m not sure how things will now stand on a legal front with the whole Novell - MS “we’ll agree not to sue you because we’ve sold you a bunch of license vouchers” deal. The patent debacle still hangs over Novell like a bad smell in some ways, it’s a feeling that made me uncomfortable with the manner in which they conducted their business dealings.
If SuSE goes back to being just SuSE, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Hovsepian’s actions garnered a great deal of mistrust, and while Novell has in many ways helped SuSE to grow, perhaps it’s time to come out of the shadows and stand in our own light.
To me it does not sound too bad. Even when I read between the lines. The good thing IMHO is that Suse is getting back to business officially as a company name and not just as a product name.
I mean, I know why SLED is named like it is, but other customers maybe don´t. They go to Novell and get Suse…
Now everyone sees it as a brandname again. Thats great.
Business-wise I think it is the same as with all management thing: If you don´t reach the goal what they have set for you, you are out. This will be no different to Suse… so lets hope that the Linux Business will grow on.
If they were making some kind of the same product line as in the past… I would buy Suse Professional right away. If it had 3 years update support… I would buy it regularly.
