SUSE executives, plus execs from SAP and IBM) talked about the Linux platform's momentum to more than 550 attendees at SUSECon 2013 this morning in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The message: SUSE is an enterprise OS.

CJ Arlotta, Associate Editor

November 12, 2013

4 Min Read
SUSE Global Alliances and Marketing Vice President says SUSECon attendees noted last year that they wanted more and in response to that feedback SUSE
SUSE Global Alliances and Marketing Vice President says SUSECon attendees noted last year that they wanted more, and in response to that feedback, SUSE added more to this year's SUSECon.

SUSE welcomed more than 550 attendees at SUSECon 2013 this morning in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. (yes, DisneyWorld, where the weather is about 40 degrees warmer here than in my hometown), pushing the value of SUSE Linux Enterprise as open source development.

Today's opening session included SUSE executives and speakers from SAP AG (SAP) and IBM (IBM). We've provided the key main points from this morning's session below.

SUSE Global Alliances and Marketing Vice President Michael Miller (on conference momentum)

  • Last year SUSECon attendees noted that they wanted more, and in response to that feedback, SUSE added 17 percent more sessions, 34 percent more presenters and 47 percent more hours to this year's event.

  • There are about 550 registrants in attendance from 163 companies, coming from more than 31 countries.

  • SUSECon 2013 has 95 breakout sessions available, offered by 102 presenters, totaling to 258 hours of breakout sessions.

SUSE President and General Manager Nils Brauckmann (on SUSE's business)

  • North American business has grown at a rate of 37 percent. More than 47 percent of SUSE's business last year came from North America.

  • There are more than 19,000 active customers that leverage SUSE technology, up from last year's 15,000 customers.

  • SUSE has more than 850 employees in 43 countries. Roughly half of SUSE employees have a technical background.

  • Around 80 percent of all Linux running on mainframe computers is SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. 70 percent of all SAP applications running on Linux run on SUSE Linux Enterprise.

  • The company has a close relationship with SAP and IBM.

  • "If you look today at the largest supercomputers of the world, half of those supercomputers are optimized on a SUSE Linux Server."

  • There are more than 11,400 applications certified and supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. More than 13,500 of hardware devices are certified and supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

  • The top three industries that the company is involved in are manufacturing (32 percent), retail (18 percent) and finance (17 percent).

  • SUSE is aiming to give control back to enterprises over their IT infrastructure.

  • SUSE's mission is to adapt and deliver high performance Linux and open source solutions paired with exceptional service, giving enterprise the smarter innovation it needs to succeed.

  • The company will continue to develop mission critical capabilities that will enhance Linux, tools to achieve advanced manageability of Linux installation.

  • SUSE will move to a new lifecycle for SUSE Enterprise. The company will now provide 10 years of general support for customers, a direct result from customer feedback.

  • SUSE Cloud will continue to be improved.

  • SUSE will go into the distributed storage market in 2014, while continuing to work with the open source community.

SAP Americas Data Warehouse Solutions and HANA Platform Global Vice President Chris Hallenbeck

  • SAP Mobile Platform reliably delivers 1.8 billion text messages worldwide

  • "SAP is an applications company, but that’s only one of the five things we do."

  • SAP 2015 strategy revolves around two core principles: practice non-disruptive innovation, delivered in a timeless fashion, while providing customer choice and simplications of the customers landscape.

  • CIOs and CTOs are asking SAP, "How can SAP make them relevant?"

  • SAP has changed its approach toward Open Source. Now, SAP asks, "Why not open source?" The company contributes to innovation and open source to protect environments.

  • SAP and SUSE Partnership goes back to 14 years. SAP focuses on easier deployments; lowering TCO, optimization and performance; contributing to open source communities; seamless integration via SAP’s Linux Lab between SAP, SUSE;  and all supported hardware vendors.

  • “We are seeing a huge increase into real-time.”

  • Predictive analytics is where the analytics market is at the moment.

  • Today’s enterprise landscape includes increased real-time capabilities, increased predictive analytics, increased mobile computing productivity.

  • You must embrace open source, but you must also be able to embrace the old. You can’t just throw a legacy system out. You must be open.

  • “We developed HANA through a deep relationship with SUSE and Intel.”

  • SAP HANA runs 100 percent on SUSE Linux.

IBM Linux Technology Center Director Jim Wasko

  • The Linux Technology Center enhances Linux capabilities and drives Linux adoption. It contributes to more than 150 OSS projects. It was founded back in 1999.

  • "We’ve now moved into virtualization and OpenStack."

  • The form of communication has changed: “Dad you have to text me if you want me to check my email."

  • IBM and SUSE have been paving the way with 15 years of industry leading open collaboration and innovation.

  • IBM is investing in the success of Linux. The company has Linux running on more than 400 plus software products and recently invested $1 billion into Linux.

  • Big Blue continues to invest in the success of Linux by expanding its leadership on IBM Power Systems.

Keep following The VAR Guy for more SUSECon 2013 coverage.

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About the Author(s)

CJ Arlotta

Associate Editor, Nine Lives Media, a division of Penton Media

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