| The Difference between Red Hat and Novell |
Dec. 16, 2005
No, not the distributions, the companies. I’ll get to the distributions another day.
I've always respected Matt Asay's thoughts on Linux. In his blog, he recently wrote about the differences between Novell, his former employer, and Red Hat, a company he knows well.
At Novell, Asay served as its director of the Linux Business Office and Open Source Review Board.
His blog tale is an interesting, short read.
His conclusion, that, "Novell is growing into its role as a major Linux vendor, and Red Hat is growing into its role as a major company," is one that I can certainly agree with.
I've never worked for either company, but I've been using their products from almost day one in both cases, and I've been covering Novell as a journalist since the late 80s and Red Hat since they got their start.
I urge you to read Asay's piece. If you care about how Linux and business work and play together, it's a must read.
For what it's worth, here are some of the places where we differ.
I agree that Novell is slowly getting it, as far as Linux is concerned. On the other hand, I really hope that Novell's recent reorganization improves how it works with customers and partners. Asay thinks it's still going well. I hope it gets better.
Over the last few years, I've heard a lot from unhappy partners and customers who wanted to get X or Y from Novell, to Novell's profit, and they just couldn't get Novell's sales and fulfillment operations to deliver the goods.
And, as everyone knows, Novell has been a little crazy recently about what it's doing with its Linux side. Hopefully, those days are done.
As for Red Hat, I think they need a lot, and I mean a lot, more work on their partner side than Asay does.
They do fine working with the big boys such as IBM, but I've heard a lot of grumbles from their smaller partners.
Still, when the day's done, Asay and I do agree on the biggest point of all: we both like the changes each company is making.
--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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