“While many Linux users applaud the surprise marriage of Novell
Inc. and SuSE Linux AG, Linux market leader Red Hat Inc. isn’t
ready to salute its new competitor.“Red Hat, which has dominated the North American Linux market,
now faces not simply Nuremberg, Germany-based SuSE but Novell, a
company with deep roots in the enterprise space and a powerful
worldwide support and channel sales force. But according to John
Young, its vice president of marketing for Red Hat, his company
‘isn’t worried.’“Young said that Red Hat is ‘not surprised that Novell is
interested in a slice of a market that we’ve shown is profitable.
This simply validates that there is enormous business interest in
Linux.’ By buying SuSE, ‘Novell is saying that Linux is the
strategic platform. We agree with that, and we’re quite ready to
help customers migrate to a strong Linux solution: ours…'”