Big shakeup in the Linux world! This will affect other products as well (like Lotus). I got this e-mail from Novell on Tuesday:

Novell Announces Agreement to Acquire Leading Enterprise Linux Technology Company SUSE LINUX

Novell today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire SUSE LINUX, one of the world’s leading enterprise Linux companies, expanding Novell’s ability to provide enterprise-class services and support on the Linux platform. With the open source expertise of SUSE LINUX and Novell’s world-class networking and identity solutions and support, training and consulting services, Novell will be able to deliver Linux and all its components — from the server to the desktop — and give organizations a secure, reliable and mature Linux foundation. Novell will pay $210 million in cash to complete the acquisition. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and the winding up of shareholder agreements. Novell expects the transaction to close by the end of its first fiscal quarter (January 2004).

This latest move follows Novell’s August purchase of Ximian, a leader in Linux server and desktop solutions, and further demonstrates Novell’s ongoing commitment to provide customers a full range of Linux solutions. Both the Ximian and SUSE LINUX acquisitions affirm Novell’s commitment to promoting the open source model and developer community.

Novell today also announced that IBM intends to make a $50 million investment in Novell convertible preferred stock. In addition, Novell and IBM are negotiating extensions to the current commercial agreements between IBM and SUSE LINUX for the continued support of SUSE LINUX on IBM’s eServer products and middleware products, and to provide for product and marketing support arrangements related to SUSE LINUX. Both of these agreements will be effective when the acquisition of SUSE LINUX by Novell is completed.

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For more information
– Press Release:
http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/11/pr03069.html?sourceid=suse_nui_press

This is huge! Novell is getting battle ready to go against Microsoft. IBM is acting as backup and will also benefit Big Blue in their ongoing lawsuit against SCO. This will also give SuSE some well-needed backbone to go against Red Hat and keep them competitive. Many of my company’s customers are using Lotus Domino on SuSE. This keeps it living a lot longer… GO TUX GO!!!