With the recent release of Window’s 7 and the flurry of operating system activity over the last few months, it’s clear that choice is coming in a big way regarding pc and mobile device operating system selection.  I wrote about this in a recently posted article on forbes.com which you can find here.

While the winner on the vendor side is far from clear, it seems obvious that the consumer will win no matter what the outcome.  Let me know what you think.

John

Last December we took the difficult but correct decision to cancel Novell’s premier user and technical training conference – BrainShare.  While most of our customers, partners and employees understood and supported the decision, there was a clear demand and passion for the event to return in 2010.

It’s with great excitement that we are announcing the return of BrainShare in 2010.  Not only will BrainShare return to Salt Lake City, Utah where it’s been for more than 20 years but after a five year hiatus, we will be holding a BrainShare EMEA event as well.  Our customers told us loud and clear that they viewed BrainShare as a critical component of their overall education and training on all things Novell.  They also told us what they liked and didn’t like about the event.  Accordingly, as we bring BrainShare back, we’ll make sure it remains the best forum for technical training and education.  We’ll also assure that we and our partners offer the hands on experiences and real life case studies that help our customers get the most out of their Novell investments.

Our Salt Lake City BrainShare will take place from Sunday, March 21 through Thursday, March 25, 2010.  Our BrainShare EMEA event will take place in May, 2010 with the exact dates and location to be finalized in the coming weeks.

BrainShare is a Novell institution and an event that every Novell employee contributes to and takes pride in.  We are truly excited about the return of this marquee conference to Salt Lake City and Europe and look forward to seeing many of you next year.

John

Every year about this time I await the very comprehensive market analysis  and forecast IDC does on the worldwide Linux operating environment.  While 2009 has been a tough year for technology vendors in general, those of us in the Linux space continue to believe strongly in the value proposition and potential of this still relatively young operating system.   The question is are we blinded by our passion or do the facts speak for a Linux future as bright as its past and present?

Well, IDC just released their 2009-2013 forecast (and review) of the worldwide Linux market and there’s good news all around.  Considering that Linux revenue started at $0 a decade ago, IDC’s projections showing Linux operating systems revenue exceeding $1 billion in 2012 and continuing to grow to $1.2 billion in 2013 is big news indeed.  In 2008, the last full year of data, the Linux vendor community saw a 23.4% growth in revenue, well north of the single digit increase in operating system revenue at large.  And while Red Hat continues to have the largest share, Novell had a particularly good 2008 growing total Linux operating system revenue by 50.3% from 2007 to 2008 while growing overall market share over five points to 29.8% in 2008.

On the server side, Linux is increasingly the choice for mission critical applications.  The growth of virtualization and the importance of interoperability were both cited by IDC as critical adoption drivers for Linux.  We agree.  These factors when combined with Linux’ clear and compelling economic value proposition suggest Linux will not only weather the current economic crisis but will continue to grow at above average growth rates for years to come.

IDC rightly points out that Linux on the client side “remains the great hope…”     We agree that IT professionals are becoming increasingly comfortable with client side Linux.  We further agree that the emergence of netbooks as low cost form factors and Intel’s exciting Moblin platform (of which Novell is a key contributor and partner) provide opportunities for Linux to grow on the client side where there is ample green field opportunity and market redefinition.

All in all, the momentum for Linux continues.

John

A little over 48 hours ago we launched the SUSE Appliance Program, the first END-TO-END technology and business solution for creating and deploying fully supported software appliances.  Reaction to this announcement from the industry, press and most importantly independent software vendors and developers has been both humbling and terrific.

In fact, since the announcement, ISVs and developers have been busy. We’ve had:

- 3,198 requests for new accounts which is slightly more than 1 request a minute

- 2,711 appliance builds, 1,104 appliance builds in the last 24 hours alone

- 1,186 test drives of built appliances

Reaction from the industry and press has been equally encouraging such as:

“It may be the most important thing Novell has done for software shops in decades” from Dana Blankenhors at ZDNET

and

“…Novell’s SUSE Appliance Program arguably tackles one of the hardest problems in Linux, and delivers a truly easy experience…”from Matt Asay at CNET

and

“Novell’s SUSE Studio…outshines similar services….with its ease of use and tight integration…” from Jason Brooks review in eWeek

But alas, we are just getting started.   Novell’s Chief Technology Officer of Linux and Open Source, Nat Friedman, just launched a fascinating series of blog posts on SUSE Studio and software appliances which you can find here.

Changing the software delivery model and the software experience.  That’s what SUSE Studio is about and the reception so far seems to indicate thousands agree.

John

Ron Popeil of RonCo fame is well known by late night insomniacs and TV infomerical fans for his enthusiastic selling of any number of food processing gadgets.  One of his more memorable products was an appliance – a rotisserie oven to be exact – that he sold with the famous tag line “Set it and forget it”.   Ron’s message was as simple as his product.  This is a device intended for a single, straight forward use and it’s designed to make it easy and simple for anyone to use.

Novell’s SUSE Appliance Program announcement today promises to deliver the same “set it and forget it” benefits.

By delivering the industry’s first end to end solution for creating and deploying fully-supported software appliances, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) will now have a complete solution to quickly build, update, configure and take to market fully-supported software appliances and virtual appliances.  For far too long mass customization has been an oxymoron in the IT industry.   Not any more.  With this offering, ISVs can now customize a fully supported, mission critical operating system (SUSE Linux Enterprise) and add the appropriate middleware and application in one easy to use and deploy bundle.

So what’s the big deal?  What’s the benefit?   For ISVs Novell’s SUSE Appliance Program dramatically reduces their time to market and greatly expands their market opportunity.  In particular, through this program ISVs will now have an easy to use set of tools to rapidly extend their applications to the cloud.  Overnight ISVs who have thought about getting into the software as a service market, now have the ability to do so without the cost and complexity of re-architecture and capital acquisitions.  Distributors and re-sellers can now have a whole new portfolio of pre-configured and tested solutions that they in turn can sell to their customers.  Enterprise IT shops now have the ability, in house, to create their own pre-tested workloads for deployment in virtual, internal or external clouds.  And finally, end users can use with confidence and ease solutions that simply work.

Creating a better software experience.  That’s not only the potential that’s the promise of software appliances.  With today’s announcement this becomes a reality for thousands of ISVs and the hundreds of thousands of end users who rely on their applications.

To see this innovative solution,  go to susestudio.com and see how fast and easy creating opportunity is for you.

John

For many clients, support is the make or break attribute of a positive or negative software experience.  Our technical support teams get this and it’s why I’m very proud that for the third consecutive year, The Association of Support Professionals has announced Novell as a winner of their “Ten Best Support Sites”.  This prestigious award highlights excellence in online service and support.

To get a first hand view of just what all the excitement is about, you can check out our online support site here. While there are many elements that go into a successful support site and experience, I believe the knowledgebase is the core of the postitive experience.  It’s here where contributions from engineers and hundreds of others multiplies into a collective knowledge no single person could ever have.  Truly the wisdom of crowds at work.

Congratulations to our support team and thanks to all our customers and partners for using and recognizing the value of world class service.

John

Today Microsoft announced that it has submitted device driver code to the Linux Community under the the GNU General Public License (version 2). The code, a release of Hyper-V Linux Integration Components (LinuxIC) which includes three Linux device drivers, has been submitted to the Linux kernel community for inclusion in the Linux tree. The drivers will be available to the Linux Community and customers alike, and will enhance the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

Of course this announcement is about much more than 20,000 lines of code Microsoft is committing (which by the way once accepted into the Linux tree will far surpass those contributed by Canonical). To misquote Neil Armstrong from 40 years ago, “this is one small step for Microsoft, but one vast leap for open source.”  We commend Microsoft for taking this very significant step.

Novell was very influential in bringing this about and has worked closely with Microsoft to make this a reality. Under the direction of Novell Fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman, who leads the Linux Kernel Device Driver project, Novell provided valuable guidance and feedback to the Open Source Technology Center, which enabled the team to contribute the code in a way that was in-line with Community processes. Under the umbrella of our 2006 partnership and agreement with Microsoft, Novell has worked hard to bridge the divide between Linux and Windows, providing what customers want – interoperability. While some have occasionally criticized us for our efforts, our technical collaborations have made it easier for us to engage with Microsoft and help bring about significant developments around server and desktop interoperability, virtualization, management, and of course device drivers.

There are multiple winners with today’s announcement.  Customers will receive huge benefits from the performance enhancements resulting from the paravirtualized drivers.  The Linux community and various distributions will ALL be able to take advantage of these key kernel improvements.  The Open Source movement and GPLv2 receive further validation as an important development models and licensing alternative respectively.  Finally, Microsoft wins for demonstrating a willingness through their actions to embrace it all on behalf of the customer agenda.

John

Announced yesterday to much fanfare, Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will, according to the company, initially be targeted at netbooks. The software architecture is very simple: a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.  You have a bit of a wait though as according to Google, the Chrome OS won’t be available for at least a year.

We are encouraged and applaud Google’s commitment to promote and use Linux and open source technologies in their planned operating system announcement  for consumers.   As others have noted, we believe this further validates that Linux is not only enterprise ready, but consumer ready as well.

Fortunately, customers will not need to wait to take advantage of the security, flexibility and cost advantages of using Linux on personal computers: Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop has been delivering these benefits for years.  Longstanding customers like the French car company PSA Peugeot, which has over 20,000 desktops running SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, have had great success and realized substantial cost savings running Linux.

The Google announcement may sound familiar in another way. If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, then Google Chrome OS is a tremendous validation of Moblin, the Intel-led, Linux-based operating system designed specifically for next generation netbooks. Moblin is already seeing support from major netbook manufacturers, and Moblin is available now.

While Google’s gravitas generates plenty of conversation and their planned entry into the consumer operating system environment is indeed news, we welcome the addition of another technology industry leader joining the cause for promoting Linux as the operating system of choice.

John

It used to be you had to make a choice…do I select form over function or function over form.  One might argue that feature packed and heavy laptops loaded (bloated?) with expensive operating system software were evidence of this choice paradox.  In reality, it wasn’t much of a choice.

With the rapid emergence and accelerating market place demand for low cost netbooks and laptops the false choice of form or function is evaporating – at least when it comes to PCs with great form factors preloaded with a Linux operating system that takes advantage of today’s computing paradigm.

In a  recent IDC study on Linux adoption in a global recession a full 68 percent of customers indicated they are evaluating or planning to increase their use of desktop Linux as a result of the economic downturn.  This not only speaks to the low-cost value proposition of Linux on the client, but also to the fact that the software and the ecosystem surrounding it have matured significantly.  Linux is now preloaded and supported on a wide range of client systems.  And it’s taking a healthy share of the fastest growing PC segment – netbooks – where Microsoft is being challenged like never before.  In fact, just today HP announced their newest ProBook laptop line would be available with Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 pre-installed.  A terrific marriage of form and function.

As more and more applications get accessed over the web, I believe we’ve only just begun the rapid growth of PC clients with attractive form factors with Linux as the preferred operating system.

It seems you can have it all – Form and Function.

John

An update of our physical infrastructure isn’t the only critical target of the U.S. government’s economic stimulus initiatives. A compelling case can be made that a significant refresh and update of our technical infrastructure is equally if not more critical to our long term growth and competitiveness. The private sector has been more aggressive than the public sector in adopting a number of technical and business model advances. One such example is the adoption of rapidly maturing open source technologies as the backbone of technical infrastructures. Not only does open source offer compelling cost advantages, but also the innovation cycles are often shorter and more compelling than fully proprietary approaches.

Novell thinks the U.S government has an opportunity and obligation to aggressively explore and promote the use of open source. We posted our views on the benefits and call to action in a article we wrote for Forbes.com that was posted today.

To be clear, there are many great examples of the use of open source within the public sector. We just believe that today’s economic realities present a catalyst for more aggressive adoption.

John