VMware Is in Talks to Acquire Novell's Linux Software Unit

 

Novell has been pretty much for sale for six months, and now The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Novell's Linux business may be bought by VMware. Novell's other assets, which includes Novell Netware, will then be bought by a private-equity backed software company called Attachmate Corp.

BY BEN WORTHEN AND ANUPREETA DAS

Novell Inc. is in advanced talks with at least two buyers, including VMware Inc., to sell the software company in separate pieces, people familiar with the matter said.

VMware is pursuing Novell's SUSE Linux operating system business, these people said. Attachmate Corp., a private-equity backed software company, could end up buying some or all of the remaining assets, including NetWare, Novell's network operating system. Attachmate, which is owned by buyout investors including Golden Gate Capital and Francisco Partners, sells software to companies running older ...

 

 

comments:

1. Why would VMware pay anything for Novell unless maybe it's for IP (esp. patents)? Novell's actual ongoing business is otherwise pretty much has-been, never-will-be-again
2. SUSE Linux, its talented development staff, and anything associated would be a few driving factors. I think your keying in on the "Novell" part and not the piece of their business that is Linux based which is something I am sure Vmware is interested in.
3. Right. Besides, isn't VM already well supported by most of the Linux distros? RedHat used to go in hand-in-hand.

The SuSe piece makes a lot of sense for VMware. A stronger VMware could become a formidable platform, potentially dominating not just the older UNIXes and one time star Red Hat but Microsoft itself as focus shifts more to virtualization and the cloud with less and less of the lock in of proprietary and seemingly open source vendors.

 

It's a low cost gamble that there is room for another enterprise supporting Linux next to RHEL. I like some of SUSE's desktop features, but never thought of them in the server arena. As for me, I am an Enterprise Architect that runs all my home laptops and desktops with Ubuntu and servers with RHEL. I design all of my solutions around RHEL. But you never know, VMware and SUSE has an outside chance of making it in the Enterprise world.