After one year of independence, how will SUSE Group write its own story for an evolving cloud landscape? 

Founded in 1992, the German open-source software company was among the first to market Linux for enterprise use. And after a long history of mergers and acquisitions, SUSE finds itself free from parental company obligations. With new leadership, SUSE has an opportunity to write its own story for the first time in 17 years.

That story is heavily focused on the open-source community, particularly during these trying times of a global pandemic. Like so many other companies, SUSE has converted its annual SUSECON conference to a virtual event, SUSECON Digital. Going online means SUSE can focus the event’s efforts on its community members, inviting a worldwide force to contribute to solving some of COVID-19’s biggest business and humanitarian problems.

“Open-source adoption will accelerate digital transformation efforts and will definitely speed up organizations to respond to the crisis, because they’re able to utilize all the technology innovation and standardization of Linux and other open-source technologies, from anywhere,” said Melissa Di Donato, chief executive officer of SUSE, in a recent interview with SiliconANGLE’s broadcast program, theCUBE. “There’s no better place to achieve that, besides being in an open-source community.”

For ongoing coverage of SUSECON Digital, theCUBE will be streaming virtual interviews with SUSE executives and customers beginning May 20 at 10 a.m. ET. (* Disclosure below.)

Flexing independence muscles

Stressing its new independence, SUSE feels more focused than ever on emerging market opportunities, including cloud-native architectures to support container technology and Kubernetes standards for managing those containers, as well as artificial intelligence and edge computing. This could put SUSE in a strong position for enterprises needing to curb spending right now.

“Whether it’s on-premises, the cloud, or utilizing edge, [organizations are] going to look for innovation in constant uptick whilst gaining cost-savings at the same time,” Di Donato said.

Edge devices are an important consideration during COVID-19, as SUSE provides the operating system for several types of medical devices, including CAT scan and mammogram machines. As an open-source company, SUSE has committed to providing free software and support to run and develop technologies associated with addressing the widespread coronavirus.  

“The employees went wild over the fact we were able to give back on a big scale to solve a problem like [COVID-19]. I think when it comes down to who we are and what our culture is, people are the most important thing to me,” Di Donato said.

That focus on people and the broader open-source community is a prideful point of differentiation for SUSE, as its independent status also makes it potentially more vulnerable to market rivals. While Microsoft, Red Hat and SUSE all began as OS companies, the former two have since expanded their product portfolios beyond their flagship operating systems, even supporting workloads running on competing platforms. For SUSE, flexibility across platforms is critical, even as it aligns its product support according to customer needs.

“SUSE is a Linux company at its core. As customers deploy more software services, they think less about the OS, and when customers use infrastructure as a service, they can relatively easily change the OS to leverage public cloud alternatives,” said Stu Miniman (@stu), senior analyst at Wikibon, sister company of SiliconANGLE Media Inc. “The question for software companies over the last five years is how they stay relevant and grow in the cloud era. SUSE needs to answer how they stay relevant to customers as cloud and AI continue to grow.”

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch the live coverage of the SUSECON Digital 2020, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

Livestream of the SUSECON Digital 2020

The SUSECON Digital 2020 is a livestream event, with additional interviews to be broadcast on theCUBE. You can register for free here to access the live coverage. You can also watch it on theCUBE’s dedicated page and YouTube channel.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

SUSECON Digital 2020 keynote speakers include:

• Melissa Di Donato, CEO, SUSE
• Julie Baldwin, senior director of global CSP alliance sales, SUSE
• Mikhail Prudnikov, principal of business development, AWS
• Marc O’Regan, EMEA CTO, Dell Technologies
• Günther Tschabuschnig, CIO, ZAMG
• Alan Clark, CTO Office, SUSE
• Dr. Thomas Di Giacomo, president of engineering and innovation, SUSE
• Daniel Nelson, VP of products and solutions, SUSE
• Vicente Moranta, VP of offering management – Enterprise Linux Workloads on Power (SAP & SAS), IBM
• Alexander Kocher, president and managing director, Elektrobit
• Glenn Fitzgerald, chief data officer at Fujitsu Products Europe
• Rachel Cassidy, senior VP of global channel and cloud, SUSE

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during SUSECON Digital 2020

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE at the SUSECON Digital event include SUSE executives Melissa Di Donato, CEO; Alan Clark, CTO; and Dr. Thomas Di Giacomo, president of engineering and innovation.

We’ll also be talking with SUSE’s Julie Baldwin, senior director for global CSP alliance sales; Daniel Nelson, VP of products and solutions; and Rachel Cassidy, SVP of global channel and cloud.

TheCUBE will also interview Mikhail Prudnikov, principal for business development, AWS; Marc O’Regan, EMEA CTO, Dell Technologies; Günther Tschabuschnig, CIO, ZAMG; Vicente Moranta, VP of offering management – Enterprise Linux Workloads on Power (SAP & SAS), IBM; Alexander Kocher, president and managing director, Elektrobit; and Glenn Fitzgerald, chief data officer at Fujitsu Products Europe.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for SUSECON Digital. Neither SUSE Group, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SUSE