December 15, 2008 4:06 PM PST

Novell's new Linux chief has Suse history

by Matt Asay
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Markus Rex, formerly the chief technology officer of Suse and currently on leave from Novell, is back in the saddle as acting general manager and senior vice president of Novell's Open Platform Solutions business unit, reporting to Novell CTO Jeff Jaffe, as Novell announced Monday.

Rex had been on loan to the Linux Foundation as its CTO for the past year. He's a fervid community believer, someone who will help balance Novell's interest in driving Linux-based revenue with the need to rebuild its relations with the Linux community that soured on Novell in the wake of its patent deal with Microsoft.

It's good to have Rex back with Novell's Suse Linux business. This is positive news for the company and for Suse Linux.

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay.
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by dragonbite December 16, 2008 6:00 AM PST
Depending on how he does with repairing Novell's relations with the community this could launch Novell quite a bit further! Good Luck!
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by AppleSuxLeo December 16, 2008 9:21 AM PST
Was he in the band Suse and the Banshees ?
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by matthorany December 17, 2008 5:56 AM PST
I hope this will continue to push SLED as a desktop solution but more the SLES / OES 2 as an enterprise solution. I think if it were marketed properly, you'd see more enterprises running iprint, ifolder, DSfW, etc.
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About The Open Road

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to the Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

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