S.Toms wrote:

Very nice article on ZD-Net, should make alot of people feel better about SuSE's place in Linux's standings. Also makes for a very nice read as they compare SuSE, RH and Caldera to WinNT. Guess who lost miserably??

<A HREF="http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/issue/0,4537,387506,00.html"><A HREF="http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/issue/0,4537,387506,00.html</A">http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/issue/0,4537,387506,00.html</A</A>>

Well yes and no. What the article states in laymans terms is that SuSE is a good product. This is good and it provides an opportunity and incentive for SuSE managment to review their strategy and marketing campaign in NA. Lets just say it constitutes a good break. IMHO SuSE strategy in NA is seriousely flawed, no major partnerships have been annouced since the partnering with Applix. This was a good move as Corels products are not ready and StarOffice is simply not up to the task...yet. 6.0 will ship with Star. Other than that no major partenerships or side deals. All major announcements that have moved Linux forwared into the commercial arena came from Redhat. While this is great news for Linux and nubies (early adopters) it certainly does little to level the playing field for linux distro vendors or consumers. Our shop runs on RH, we have too, to survive. I personally run SuSE at home for all the right reasons, but try and convince anyone else of its merrits, especially non-users. Corp views are clear Linux = RedHat At best the article hopefully will wake up SuSE managment of the portential in NA. IMHO nothing would hurt linux and its penetration of the corporat world more, 'in the long run', than an identification of Linux with one brand name, even if that name was SuSE. We need players, choice and some diversification. A strong represtation by a number two player is urgently needed. Right now its a toss up between Caldera and SuSE who each have less than 100f the total US install base where as the rest is split quite unevenly by RH and Debian. As Debian will not likely ever go commercial that leaves SuSE or Cladera with quite a lot of work ahead of them just to catch up. This is where we come in. SuSE will only invest some seriouse money into advertizing and partnerships if we the user base keep pointing it out to them and encourage them. Linux is about consumer choice as open source trasnfers the ownership, responsibility and managment of the OS from the manufacturer to the developers and end users. Cant look under the hood with other systems. I think if we just keep at it we cold possibly see some greater levels of commitment to NA. While they are doing well in Europe things are not that cozy on this side of the pond. PLease be informed that this is not an anti-RH rant, quite the contrary. IF the SuSE team was as active in NA as the guys in the red hats...I think we would all be better campers. regards chris - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archiv at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>