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Why IBM wanted a piece of Novell's SuSE action

Tags:
Licence,
License,
Novell,
Copyright

David Berlind CNET News

Published: 06 Nov 2003 16:20 GMT

So, let's add this up, against the backdrop of indemnification. We've got two companies -- - IBM and Novell -- - both of which have made heavy technology and marketing investments in Linux and open source (including Novell's recent acquisition of Ximian). One of the companies (IBM) is the subject of a giant lawsuit from the company that claims to own the intellectual property rights to the technology in Linux. The other is a company that, dating back to its UnixWare days, is rumoured to still have just enough Unix intellectual property rights to be immune to the wrath of SCO. The customers of these two companies want some assurances, and the CTO of Novell wants to provide them in the way of solid stack interoperation and issue-free intellectual property rights. Are we getting warm yet?

So, if Novell is immune (which Novell officials wouldn't comment on yesterday), and SuSE belongs to Novell, then it follows that SuSE's distribution of Linux could be untouchable. IBM's Linux strategy -- - of which SuSE's Linux distribution is a centrepiece -- - is preserved. Novell's cross-platform services strategy (which I'll get to in a minute) -- - at least a third of which (or more) depends on the long-term viability of Linux -- - remains intact. Customers seeking indemnification end up with something better -- a free and clear licence.

I asked Nugent what he thought of my theory. While he didn't give me much, he gave me this: "Your intuition is good. Stay tuned."

So, now that I've covered what I believe is the biggest reason behind this deal, let's explore some of Novell's other reasons for acquiring SuSE.

Hoping to prove that there is indeed life after NetWare, Novell's goal, according to Nugent, is to provide the best-of-breed offerings in the areas of directory services, identity management, resource management, system provisioning, and Web application development, and to do so in a way that provides customers with a great deal of flexibility. "We've been talking over the past few months about our standards-based approach and commitment to open source and our desire to offer customers choice," said Nugent. "To do that, we're offering a set of services that behave consistently across Windows, Linux and NetWare. We want to be the leading provider of cross-platform services. With SuSE and its orientation towards the enterprise, we saw a lot of synergies across the board. It was the right company to go after."

I reminded Nugent of another time Novell had made a similar promise. Novell had promised that most if not all of NetWare's functionality -- - especially NetWare Directory Services -- - would be available on UnixWare. I asked him why Novell felt that it was able to make good on its promise this time.

Nugent tactfully avoided bashing his ancestry at Novell: "That was a different company. There was nothing wrong with the company eight or nine years ago. It's just that the Novell of that generation had a different leadership and a different focus and it may have lacked a clear representation of a go-to-market strategy. In the last 18 to 24 months, we've sharpened our approach to the market by using a single code base to offer everything across all platforms."