By Shayna Faulkner

SUSECon 2013, the second-annual SUSE Linux conference for partners and customers, is roughly three months away (Nov. 12-15, Orlando, Fla.). But as the conference approaches, precious little is known about the agenda and sponsors. So what should partners expect on the cloud, OpenStack and server fronts? Here are five guesses, observations and questions from The VAR Guy.

1. Enterprise Partners: SUSE has solid relationships with big partners like Dell, IBM, SAP and even Microsoft. But some of those partners have been relatively quiet in 2013. What new applications can customers expect for SUSE running in public and private clouds?

2. OpenStack Clouds: SUSE Cloud 2.0, currently in beta, leverages OpenStack. But how will SUSE differentiate from Red Hat’s RHEL OpenStack Platform? Hmmm…

3. Market Share: SUSE claims one-third of the top 100 supercomputers in the world, as ranked by the TOP500 list, runs SUSE Linux. But what is SUSE’s market share in corporate data centers — especially in Europe (a traditional stronghold) and North America?

4. Channel Partners: What exactly is the SUSE channel strategy? Check online, and the partner program still seems closely aligned with sister businesses like NetIQ and Novell. But doesn’t SUSE deserve to have its own channel partner destination to drive education and adoption?

5. Overall Performance: It has been nearly three years since Attachmate acquired Novell and the SUSE business. How has SUSE performed under Attachmate’s ownership? And how is SUSE’s installed base evolving amid the cloud and mobile revolutions?

The VAR Guy will be exploring those and other questions as SUSECon 2013 approaches. And with a little luck, perhaps our resident blogger will surface at the conference.