Another note: One thing that you left out, and impressed me during my time at Red Hat, was management's focus on the customer. I can't remember the last time, if ever, I heard that throughout my career in IT.

Its a simple idea, often heard in the retail industry ("The Customer is King"), but to hear it coming from Matthew Szulik himself, proved to me that Red Hat "got it", and it stands as a definite differentiator and innovative angle to their business model.

Its debatable whether Microsoft and other proprietary vendors listen to their customers... they don't have to as they rely on lock-in. Open Source companies pitching products on open standard, simply do not have the luxury.

I assume you are going to give equal coverage to the SUSE Linux Enterprise business model, too?

There is tons of innovation driven through the openSUSE project (ranked higher on DistroWatch than Fedora). Novell packages the innovation from openSUSE, tests it, enhances it for scalability, performance, scalability and security, and then ships SUSE Linux Enterprise -- in a release cycle roughly six-nine months before Red Hat. SUSE competes on the quality of our code, and the power of support & service to the customer, because you can't lock someone in when they can renew their subscription once a year. SUSE doesn't charge for upgrade -- you subscribe to SUSE Linux Enterprise. We pioneered a new business model last year, when we decided not to charge for virtual servers on Linux -- a move that Red Hat followed in March when they shipped RHEL5.

I'm not criticizing your post or Red Hat. I'm just saying that there is more than one Linux distribution out there, driving innovation and competing on the value of support and service.

No, I'm not. Because it is the model that Red Hat pioneered and continues to follow across all of its products, not just those that the GPL imposes on it. Novell continues to treat open source like a convenient marketing gimmick. You won't see me giving it props for that.

Justin-
I would strongly argue that "free" is a pioneering business model for virtual servers. It is a desperate and dumb move in a growing virtual server market. Also, Red Hat did not entirely follow your move - RHEL customers must but RHEL 5 Advanced starting at $1,499 to get unlimted virtual instances vs. $349 for SLES. I would hardly say that is following. Red Hat is competing on brand and open source value, Novell is losing and trying to compete on price and FUD. Not a good value proposition.

Although I know it pains you, Novell is a mixed source comapny. Part of our product line is open source and part is proprietary. We've been extremely upfront about that. We do not treat open source as a convenient marketing gimmick. Our 300+ open source engineers might resent that comment, as would the 40,000 members of openSUSE. We think there is value in offering open source solutions where it makes sense for customers and closed source solutions where it makes sense for customers. Novell's value prop is that we help customers integrate open source and closed source applications into their IT environment.

Justin:

You need to know when to quit. You may forget that I still have lots of contacts within Novell. I know the typical sales pitch to the CIO. In fact, at a lunch a few months ago, I sat one table away from a Novell salesperson who was pitching the whole shebang: SUSE (5 minutes), Identity Management/GroupWise/ZEN/etc. for 30, and the Microsoft patent FUD for the remaining 25.

Perhaps he was atypical? I hope so.

But let's be clear: there is precisely one reason that Novell is a mixed source company: it doesn't know how to move forward and hence sacrifice all that legacy maintenance revenue. I was there well before you arrived, Justin. I was there when Ledbetter, Stone, etc. were trying to figure out how to move forward without giving up all that legacy cash. Novell is still trying to figure that out, and your 300+ open source engineers aren't well served by the fence-sitting. Just ask them.

Justin-
I just have one more comment/question, as you requested coverage on your business model.

- How much growth has the SUSE Linux business seen under Novell since acquisition? My understanding was that SUSE was a 35-40 million dollar company (in annual revenue) when acquired. What was last year's recognized revenue 50+ million?

You want kudos for your business model and acumen for stifling a business in a market that is growing greater than 30% annually?

Red Hat is a 500 million dollar open source business, Novell will not even approach 80 million dollars in open source revenue this year, even with the MSFT payment.

And one more thing - having MSFT give away for free your coupons is real bad. Everyone knows MSFT is not charging customers for these certificates so please stop releasing these fluffy customer adoption press releases. Customers will not adopt free certificates in mass form (albeit they may register) and I am sure the free SUSE certificates are flushing your Linux pipeline dry..

and u want kudos on your business model - is that a joke?

"There is tons of innovation driven through the openSUSE project (ranked higher on DistroWatch than Fedora)"

This is the number of people who visit the distribution pages in distrowatch. Are you delusional or do you really believe this means ANYTHING at all?

> Microsoft gets paid to rest on its
> laurels. Red Hat (and the wider
> Linux world) gets paid to constantly
> innovate new laurels.

To be fair, Red Hat works in tandem with other parties (volunteers included) on this. But then again, that's the beauty of open collaboration.

I read this blog on an almost daily basis. Matt, I can't help but notice how gullible you sound and your ever present witchhunt (yes, that is how it comes across to the readers just so you know) gets old.

You sound like Nicholas Petreley over at Linux Journal. Your blog is like having that one person in the office that always finds something to complain about. After a while, everyone discredits what they have to say.

Do you remember when all the linux geeks had tagged Red Hat as the evil commercial linux co? I do.

Bystander:

Well, at least you read it, even if you don't like it. But that seems like a slight touch of masochism. If it "gets old" and if it's "gullible," then why read it?

More pertinently, what, precisely, do you find negative? I'm not complaining in the post; on the contrary, I'm celebrating a model that I believe will help many projects (MySQL, JBoss, Alfresco, etc.) become billion-dollar companies. There's nothing negative about that - it's very, very positive.

I suspect that the only way you'd find the post negative is if you work for Novell and somehow feel (like Justin) that I don't give you your due by calling it the Novell model. But let's be candid - it's not Novell's model and never was. Red Hat originated the model. I was there at Novell when we were trying to grok it and (gasp!) emulate it (for SUSE, anyway).

This doesn't have to be a Novell vs. Red Hat thing, though. The model is even more open than the most open of open source. You can use it. I can use it (in fact, I am). And we can help customers and thwart competitors with it.

What's not to like in that?

Anyway, I hope you either a) start to enjoy the blog or b) stop reading it (for your sake, not mine - I love having you with us, whoever you are).

Matt

The Bystander above hit it right on the mark. Your blog has entered the realm of a personal vendetta and it's as stale and contrived as it appears. Summary- Rah Rah red hat, Boo Boo novell.

Anyway, I hope you either a) start to enjoy your blog or b) start reading it to actually see the cheerleader and Boo bird you have become.

Sometimes, folks, somebody needs to say the truth. I,for one, usually agree with Matt. His thinking aligns with the concept of Free software, not 'mixed source', stemming from proprietary roots.

Redhat sure has a strange business model - Now days you can't even get security patches without paying for each server. Not sure which customers get the support you are talking about..certainly not the academic based ones.