On the differences between Red Hat and Novell

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Neil Macallister on the differences between Red Hat and Novell:

Consider LinuxWorld Expo, last week. Novell had a large booth near the entrance of the show floor, where it played host to various partners. Novell representatives were in abundance, sitting on conference panels and offering hands-on tutorial sessions. Special sessions recapped the best content from Novell’s own BrainShare conference.

Red Hat, on the other hand, was a no-show. A cocktail party it sponsored at a nearby hotel was well-attended, but there was little in terms of company messaging or media, customer or investor outreach; not even a promotional flyer.

Likewise, as a member of the technology press, barely a week goes by that I don’t receive some kind of e-mail release or contact from Novell or its representatives. By comparison, I hear from Red Hat maybe once every six months.

In short, Novell is well-aware that it is the New Novell. New Novell’s success depends on engaging the market, getting its message out to customers, winning developer support, and building community — and it knows it. It may not be the market leader today, but it wants to go where its customers lead it.

Increasingly, however, Red Hat is aware of the fact that it is The One and Only Red Hat. Red Hat is holding the cards, and the customers will come to Red Hat.

Old Novell used to think that way.

Dave Rosenberg’s response, and a good dialogue with our Scott Lewis.

And a short positive piece about how Novell has stepped up:

There has been a feeling since Novell acquired SUSE that it needed to up its game in competing with Red Hat and so far this year it seems to be doing so. Without wishing to give with one hand and take away with the other, I can’t help feeling that Novell is currently preaching to the converted, however.That’s a good place to start, but there’s a much bigger market out there that has never heard of Linux, let alone taken a look at it. This is the market Novell somehow needs to crack if it is to seriously dent Red Hat’s market share – let alone Microsoft’s.