The uncertainty about Novell’s future is probably hurting sales of its Linux line, despite of some of the investments they’ve made recently. VMWare is booming, but definitely needs to expand or eventually get lost in the crowd. SUSE and the Studio would be great assets for them. It would be interesting.
Only in the US; elsewhere it is doing better - in particular China, according to Markus Rex in a recent interview. From a long term perspective, that is very encouraging.