A quantitative look at the performance of Novell's SUSE product across a variety of community/developer related metrics.

1. The State of: Novell
[Report Sample]
February 2011
10.20.2005

2. Employment Volume
2

3. Standalone Performance Seems Acceptable
3

4. But Market Relative Performance is Problematic
4

5. Trajectories of Second Place Distribution Candidates
5

6. Conclusions
•
SUSE is competitive for total employment
•
Trending should be a concern for Novell
6

7. Usage Metrics
7

8. Search Volume Reflects Neither Growth Nor Outperformance
8

9. Acquisition Not Likely to Improve Overall Visibility
9

10. Hacker News Shows Modest Interest in SUSE
Source: news.ycombinator.com
10

11. StackOverflow Traction is Slightly Higher
Source: StackOverflow.com
11

12. Windows Inclusive Market Context Highlights a Larger Problem
Source: StackOverflow.com
12

13. SUSE Amazon AMI Version Availability Lags Competitors
Source: TheCloudMarket.com
13

14. Eclipse Community Data Shows Minimal SUSE Penetration
Source: Eclipse Community Survey
14

15. MarkMail Data Shows Modest SUSE Traffic (Note Y Axis)
Query: Fedora Query: Ubuntu
Query: Red Hat Query: SUSE*
* SUSE lists do not appear to be included in MarkMail's repository Source: Markmail.org
15

16. Conclusions
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Developer metrics indicate visibility problem
•
Issue is horizontal: cloud, community, tools
•
Developer attention should be area of focus
16

17. ISV Support
17

18. SUSE Packaging is Lower Priority
18

19. Conclusions
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Emerging ISV focus is not on SUSE
•
ISV traction is a function of usage metrics
•
Case for SUSE must account for weaknesses
19