Last week, SUSE, an open-source software company that develops and sells Linux products to business customers announced that it is an independent company now. SUSE also finalized its $2.5 billion acquisition by growth investor EQT from Micro Focus. According to the official post, SUSE also claims to be “the largest independent open source company.”
Novell, a software and services based company, had first acquired SUSE in 2004. Novell then got acquired by Attachmate in 2010, which was then acquired by Micro Focus in 2014. Micro Focus then turned Suse into an independent division and further sold SUSE to EQT in 2018.
The newly independent SUSE has brought in addition to its team by adding new leadership roles. Enrica Angelone has joined as SUSE’s Chief Financial Officer, and Sander Huyts, director of sales at SUSE, is the new Chief Operations Officer. Thomas Di Giacomo, former CTO for SUSE, is now the president of Engineering, Product and Innovation. According to SUSE’s blog post, SUSE’s expanded team will be actively participating in communities and projects to bring open source innovation to the enterprise.
Nils Brauckmann, CEO at SUSE, said, “ Our genuinely open, open source solutions, flexible business practices, lack of enforced vendor lock-in and exceptional service are more critical to customer and partner organizations, and our independence coincides with our single-minded focus on delivering what is best for them.”
He further added, “Our ability to consistently meet these market demands creates a cycle of success, momentum and growth that allows SUSE to continue to deliver the innovation customers need to achieve their digital transformation goals and realize the hybrid and multi-cloud workload management they require to power their own continuous innovation, competitiveness, and growth.”
SUSE’s new move is towards capitalizing on market dynamics, creating tremendous value for customers and partners. SUSE’s independent status and EQT’s backing will enable the company’s continued expansion towards driving growth in SUSE’s core business and in emerging technologies, both organically and through add-on acquisitions.
As the company has been owned by EQT, so according to few users it’s still not independent. One of the users commented on HackerNews, “Being owned by a Private Equity fund can really not be described as being “independent”. Such funds have a typical investment horizon of 5 – 7 years, with potential exits being an IPO, a strategic sale (to a bigger company) or a sale to another PE fund, with the strategic sale probably more typical. In the meantime the fund will impose strict growth targets and strong cost cuts.”
Another comment reads, “Yeah, I’m not sure how anyone can call private equity “independent”. Our whole last year had selling the company as our top priority. Not something I’d choose in a truly independent position.”
To know more about this news, check out SUSE’s official announcement.
Read Next