Some Novell Momentum

It looks like Novell might be quietly building up some momentum. First came news that Office Depot is consolidating onto the SLES platform:

In its latest significant victory, Novell announced that Office Depot has elected to consolidate its server infrastructure on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 1.

In the past, Office Depot, with offices in 43 countries, has used an eclectic collection of server operating systems. These include Solaris, Windows, IBM’s mainframe operating system z/OS, i5/OS (the newest version of IBM’s OS/400 midrange computer operating system) and several different kinds of Linux. According to Novell, moving to SLES on commodity hardware has already helped Office Depot reduce its hardware and power costs.

Now comes news that SAP is recommending Novell’s SUSE Linux as its preferred platform. Both announcements serve as good news for Novell, who may soon be announcing additional layoffs despite this growing momentum. Novell recently reported a loss, but its Linux revenue is up almost 70%. It’s clear that the Enterprise Linux market wants at least two solid vendors in play. Red Hat seemingly has one of those spots locked up. Canonical is now making an Enterprise push with Ubuntu, so if Novell wants to hold onto its current number two position it needs to take advantage of this traction. As usual, all of this should be quite good for consumers.

–jeremy