There have been a lot of rumors that Novell will be sold. Latest rumors are that the Linux parts of Novell (former SuSE) will be split off and sold separately.
Since that got public, there are even more rumors: Which company will buy the Linux part of Novell?
- Red Hat: Very unlikely, since the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in the EU and USA will most likely disagree because RHEL and SLES are already some kind of “duopoly”.
- Microsoft: No way that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission will agree on this. On the other hand, MS has enough manpower to get on market with “MS-Linux” if they want to do so.
- VMware: Would make sense, they can position them as a counterpart of Red Hat with its KVM initiative. Since VMware is a Windows-Shop, it is unlikely.
- Oracle: They already have OEL, a clone of REHL, very unlikely
- Hewlett-Packard: Would make sense because HP-UX is dead and HP does not have a future proof operating system anymore
- IBM: They have AIX and IBM is involved in business with both, RHEL and SLES and others. I’m unsure if it would make sense to take over Suse. AIX is one of the two Unix Systems that will survive (maybe the only one since most probably Solaris 12 will never appear).
My wild guess is: Hewlett-Packard. Why? Monopolies and Mergers Commission will not be concerned, and HP does not have any competitive Operating System in its assets anymore.
Depending on who is buying the Linux business of Novell, we will have fun or not…
Lets take a breath,
Luc