Interview: Novell's Linux leanings and the interweaving of NetWare and SUSE

Posted on 4 Feb 2005 at 16:20

Of course the great thing about Linux is that all the code is open source and we have a lot of flexibility as we look at that in the future.

What's the roadmap for the NetWare kernel? At the moment you're offering both kernels, but will you continue to do that?

So NetWare is a kernel, with services on it. And what we've done with OpenEnterprise is to ship [the Linux kernel as well]. So what's the future of NetWare, well as we develop OES, we are going to take these elements of NetWare, as a component of OES forward.

Every time we as Novell talk about NetWare we talk about the entire car, the whole thing. But when we're talking about the future of NetWare, we're suddenly talking about the engine. No-one talks about the HAL abstraction layer for Windows, in comparison.

Is this driving forward? Absolutely. We have a roadmap that we'll be releasing OES version 2 in late 2006. In fact we're also planning to add new services to OES in 2005 which will be applicable to customers using both the NetWare and Linux kernel.

So are you saying that the NetWare kernel is always going to be there one way or another?

Always is an interesting conversation. But if in ten years' time all of our customers are running the Linux kernel then a commercial decision will be made. But right now, absolutely, we're committed to both.

So will the NetWare kernel go away? There are zero plans for that to happen.

And is there a drive to port NetWare apps to Linux?

We are not trying to drive third-parties, but we are porting our applications to Linux, because we see a market opportunity.

It's also true to say that if I am an application developer today, in ten years' time I'm probably going to be developing for one of two operating systems: Windows and Linux. I think that's a reality.

We will acknowledge that the NetWare market has been in decline, but the user count has been pretty static, and it's still several hundred million dollars of revenue.

There are very few software products in the market today that generate that sort of revenue. So we will continue to provide a roadmap for those type of customers.

And presumably you've now got a whole new set of customers you're keying into as well?

Absolutely. I think there are two things. Customers that had considered moving away from NetWare now have another opportunity, rather than the Windows opportunity. And from our standpoint, when we acquired SUSE Linux, that brought a large customer base to Novell and we've now got our upsell to those customers.

It wasn't a huge customer base was it, compared with the likes of Red Hat?

In Europe it's pretty strong. Worldwide it's true that Red Hat is stronger.

The other thing is that with OpenEnterprise Server, there's no reason why Novell, with its global reach, can't go to a Red Hat customer and say 'well this is what the base distribution does, and this is what we do'.

So can we take OpenEnterprise Server to a Red Hat customer? Absolutely.

And how important are those OEM deals with HP, IBM, Dell and so on?

They're all very key. It's often said that Linux is a disruptor. And it's disruptive because it's customers that drive it. Customers want more value, more choice, less cost. So how do we as a company provide that without slashing our costs?

One way to do that is to develop in the community. And that's the real disruptor of Open Source for Novell.

We're developing Linux with Oracle, with HP, with Dell and building technology together, and going to market together.