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Novell and SUSE Unveil New Linux Products

March 24, 2004

This article was contributed by Ladislav Bodnar

There is a feeling among Linux solution providers that the next few months will be critical in terms of gaining new customers. This is when opportunities are going to be won and lost, and this is why decisive action has to be taken now. It will no longer be just a battle between Microsoft and Linux; it will also be a battle between various Linux entities to attract those businesses and enterprises which have made the decision to deploy Linux as part of their overall IT strategies.

SUSE LINUX, together with its powerful parent Novell, is well positioned for a dramatic increase in market share, especially on the North American market, where it has traditionally lagged behind the region's undisputed leader - Red Hat, Inc. Novell is well aware of the opportunity - its recent high-profile marketing campaign and a constant stream of press releases, product announcements, and even some radical ideas, have succeeded in catching the attention of the media. This is a very effective way of getting into the spotlight, especially while Red Hat seems somewhat less proactive.

Is Novell truly committed to Linux? "This year BrainShare don't do no stinking Windows", shouted Novell's chief executive and chairman Jack Messman during the opening speech of the company's annual BrainShare user conference. He also disclosed that Novell has committed itself to moving 100 percent of staff from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org by the middle of this year, and to Linux by the end of this year. It was vital, explained Messman, that his company is seen to be "eating our own dog food or drinking our own champagne" from a customer's perspective.

These ambitious declarations were soon followed by announcements about concrete products designed to make migration to Linux easier. Novell Open Enterprise Server is a new product combining Novell's NetWare, SUSE LINUX and Ntprise Linux Services into one complete networking solution. Novell GroupWise, a collaboration suite for handling e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging, contact, document and workflow management, will for the first time be available on Linux in its upcoming version 6.5 (a beta release can be downloaded for free, after registration). Besides heralding these commercial products, Novell also succeeded in pleasing the Free Software community by announcing that SUSE's system administration utility YaST will from now on be licensed under the GPL, and by introducing a new open source project called iFolder. iFolder is an easy-to-use file sharing solution for workgroup environments consisting of an integrated file sharing utility, address book, and a general purpose object repository.

As if all of the media coverage wasn't enough, Novell also announced the release of SUSE LINUX 9.1. This was a somewhat more predictable press release and it is nice to see that SUSE continues the twice per year release cycle of its distribution even after becoming part of Novell. SUSE LINUX 9.1, available in late April in Europe and early May in the rest of the world, will include kernel 2.6, KDE 3.2.1 and GNOME 2.4, among the usual array of great software packages. As with version 9.0, an AMD64 edition of the product will be released for the 64-bit Athlon and Opteron processors.

But doesn't SUSE's traditional preference for KDE conflict with Novell's goals, especially after Novell's purchase of Ximian, and with Ximian's bias towards GNOME-specific development programs? A partial answer to this question can be found in the two SUSE LINUX 9.1 press releases: while the English announcement is interspersed with references to GNOME, including a full paragraph about GNOME features, the German press release devotes exactly one sentence to the KDE alternative. This would seem to indicate that SUSE will continue to promote a KDE-centric desktop on the well-established domestic market, while accommodating Novell's intention to integrate Ximian into the product for the North American market. This speculation was given a new perspective earlier this week: according to an interview with Jack Messman at eWEEK, Novell is planning to combine the best features of Ximian and KDE to create a unified desktop environment. If the plan goes ahead, the new desktop should make an appearance in the next version of SUSE LINUX, scheduled for release towards the end of this year.

Besides the new kernel and KDE, SUSE LINUX 9.1 provides a number of other interesting features, as well as several new software packages. YaST now includes a new module for ACPI with graphical configuration of individual ACPI power management settings. The Professional edition comes with new software exclusive to SUSE, such as Textmaker and Planmaker (two Word and Excel-compatible word processing and spreadsheet applications by Softmaker), Moneyplex (a home banking software by Matrica), and Rekall (an MS Access-like database application from theKompany). A demo version of MainActor 5.2 for digital video and audio editing is also included. We will take a closer look at SUSE LINUX 9.1 after its release.

As many predicted, Novell's purchase of SUSE LINUX late last year has given Linux a considerable boost. If all of the plans by the networking giant end up being implemented, we can look forward to an exciting era of new Linux deployments, together with aggressive development initiatives. In the meantime, we can also look forward to many more press releases by Novell on its mission to move everybody to Linux.

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