Novell announced its acquisition of SUSE for US$210 million in cash on Tuesday, marking another step in Novell's effort to transform itself into a "Linux company." The deal includes a US$50 million investment by IBM, which was involved with SUSE in prior deals regarding IBM's software and server hardware.
Earlier in the year Novell announced that future Netware releases would run Linux as well as their proprietary kernel. This deal, coming hot on the heels of the unexpected acquisition of Ximian in August, ups the ante. Novell now has a complete solution, with Ximian (or Windows) on the desktop, their directory package, mail and groupware, and management software — all running on SUSE Servers.
This couldn't come at a better time for Novell. Windows NT 4 and Red Hat Linux 7.1 through 8.0 are due to be EOLed at the end of the year, potentially triggering a glut of migrations. In addition, Sun has been getting a lot of attention for its new Linux desktop/directory/server offerings. If Novell can offer a complete, desktop-to-server solution, they could grab a large slice of the expanding Linux enterprise pie.~Write-up by tm, whiprush, and philmes
