SUSE

SUSE is a provider of business and Linux cloud solutions that increase flexibility and manageability. IT infrastructures By releasing a range of products based on a SUSE Linux Enterprise universal platform for mission-critical computing, SUSE enables organizations to deliver IT services in a physical, virtual cloudy and environment.

SUSE has changed its legal status twice throughout its history. In 2004, SuSE Linux AG was acquired by Novell Inc. 7 years later, The Attachmate group of companies acquired Novell, which eventually made SUSE a separate business unit within the holding.

Commercial version of the company

SUSE is actively involved in a large number of open source projects and communities. ON One of the largest and most influential of these is openSUSE the project formed in 2005., Software Linux funded by SUSE has always been developed and distributed by free software licensing models and rules, but openSUSE has gone further in this direction, enabling IT professionals and users to test and contribute to the development of this community and commercial versions of these products.

Decisions

Clients

Over two decades, SUSE has demonstrated the strength and reliability of Linux to a large and diverse number of consumers, including the London Stock Exchange, BMW, Walgreen's, SONY, Sesame Workshop and Office Depot. Many companies trust SUSE Linux Enterprise to install different types of cores, critical IT services, from large databases in a particular market or trade to production, e-commerce, air traffic control, etc.

Performance indicators

2020: Revenue - $503 million

SUSE's fiscal 2020 revenue was $503 million.

History

2023: EQT Partners fully bought out Suse; Suse's departure from the exchange

On August 17, 2023, open source software provider Suse announced that its largest shareholder was fully buying out the company and converting it into a private structure. After that, Suse shares will not be traded on the stock exchange.

We are talking about a deal with the Swedish investment company EQT Partners, which in 2021 floated Suse shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. In accordance with the new proposal, EQT intends to buy all Suse securities at the rate of €16 per share. This represents a 67 percent premium to the value of the software supplier's securities on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange as of August 17, 2023 (about €9.61). Thus, Suse receives an estimate of €2.6 billion.

One of the world's largest manufacturers of Linux distributions Suse sold for 2.6 billion euros and will leave the exchange

The majority shareholder of Suse is the holding company Marcel LUX III SARL (Marcel), registered in Luxembourg. This structure owns approximately 79% of the shares of the software manufacturer. The owner of the holding company, in turn, is EQT, an investment structure that manages assets worth more than €200 billion.

As part of the deal, Suse will borrow funds of up to €500 million and direct this money to pay lump sum dividends, which are expected to range from €1.07 to €3.42 per share. Dividends will be paid to shareholders regardless of whether they accept the EQT offer. Suse's board and supervisory board have already backed the deal, including converting the company into a private structure and leaving the exchange. This is intended to allow Suse to "fully focus on its operational priorities and ​​realizatsii long-term strategy." The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023 after getting the necessary approvals from regulators.^[1]

2021: Going public, estimated at €5 billion

In mid-May 2021, shares of open source software provider SUSE began trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

The German company set its IPO price at 30 euros per share, earning SUSE a market capitalization of 5 billion euros, but its shares opened at 29.50 euros apiece and eventually traded unchanged. EQT-backed SUSE initially intended to set the price at 34 euros per share. The offering was brokered by banks Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, with Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Jefferies as registrars.

Suse went public and was valued at 5 billion euros

SUSE and its sponsors sold 37.8 million shares totaling 1.1 billion euros as part of the listing. EQT, which bought the company in 2018 for $2.5 billion, will remain the company's largest shareholder with a 77.6% stake.

It's the beginning of an incredible journey, "noted SUSE CEO Melissa Di Donato, the first woman to lead a high-profile initial public offering in Frankfurt.

Di Donato joined SUSE in 2019, she concentrated on increasing the company's profits through innovative technology and asset acquisitions.

SUSE intends to continue to adhere to fully open development methods and a business model that contributes to the development of the community and open projects. The company also plans to expand its scope and go beyond working exclusively with Linux products, in particular SUSE sees the future in the development of containerization and cloud computing.

Our customers need powerful, modern and at the same time reliable technologies that will accelerate the transformation of the business, "added Melissa Di Donato.[2]

2020 Purchase of Rancher Labs for $600-700 million

On July 8, 2020, SUSE officially announced the acquisition of Rancher Labs. The companies did not name the value of the deal. CNBC, citing its sources, reports that we are talking about an amount in the range of $600-700 million. Read more here.

2019: Melissa Di Donato is Suse's new CEO

On July 22, 2019, Melissa Di Donato was named CEO of Suse. In this post, she replaced Niels Braukman, who worked as part of a Linux distribution developer for eight years. Read more here.

2018: Micro Focus sells SUSE for $2.5bn

In early July 2018, British software manufacturer Micro Focus announced the sale of Linux distribution developer SUSE. This asset is bought by the Swedish investment company EQT Partners for $2.5 billion.

Micro Focus will spend part of this amount on reducing debt and returning capital to shareholders.

SUSE functioned in Micro Focus as a semi-independent division. With the EQT deal, the company will regain independence and be able to hire more software engineers to expand the products on offer.

Linux distribution developer SUSE sold for $2.5 billion

Investment in engineers was somewhat limited by the former owner. Now this will change, - quoted by Reuters representative of EQT Johannes Reichel (Johannes Reichel).

He added that one of SUSE's growth drivers is a product line that helps companies buy computing power from cloud providers like Google and Amazon that work in conjunction with their own servers.

The change of ownership does not involve personnel changes. SUSE CEO Nils Brauckmann will remain in place. He assured that the deal would not have a negative impact on the openSUSE project. No changes are planned in SUSE's interaction with the openSUSE project and SUSE will continue to support the openSUSE community, he said.

Additionally, SUSE will continue to adhere to the Open Source model, which allows enterprise clients to develop and deploy software-defined infrastructure, according to Braukman.

Micro Focus called the value of the deal with EQT "very attractive." The amount corresponds to almost 8 times revenue and 26.7 times operating profit of the company for the year, which ended at the end of October 2017.

Following the announcement of SUSE's sale, Micro Focus rose 6%.^[3]

2016

SUSE gets HPE technologies in OpenStack Iaas and Cloud Foundry PaaS

SUSE and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) entered into an agreement in December that SUSE gains the technology and expertise to expand SUSE's OpenStack Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution and accelerate entry into the rapidly growing Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) market based on Cloud Foundry technology. The acquired OpenStack HPE developments will be integrated into SUSE Open Stack Cloud, and Cloud Foundry technologies will bring SUSE Cloud Foundry certified solution to the market for SUSE customers and partners. The agreement calls for SUSE to be announced as HPE's preferred partner for Linux, OpenStack, and Cloud Foundry. In addition, SUSE will become a platinum member of the Cloud Foundry Foundation, and a company representative will join the fund's board of directors.

Part of this agreement is that HPE has named SUSE as the preferred partner in Linux, OpenStack, and Cloud Foundry. This decision once again confirmed SUSE's reputation as a provider of products and services of the highest quality in the enterprise.

Buying HPE's cloud assets

On November 30, 2016, Suse announced the acquisition of part of the cloud business of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE). Due to this transaction, the value of which is not disclosed, the buyer expects to increase revenue growth and master new markets. Read more here.

2014

SUSE was part of Attachmate Corporation, which was bought by Micro Focus in 2014 for $2.35 billion.

2012

In 2012, the partnership with Microsoft is aimed at maximizing customer spending on managing their heterogeneous and mixed environments. SUSE continues to partner with other major global technology leaders in the industry, such as AMD, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Oracle and VMware, and together they help their customers solve the very difficult challenges that today's IT market poses to them.

In 2012, to celebrate its achievements and its 20th anniversary, SUSE will host a number of events around the world, including SUSECon 2012, a conference to be held from September 18-21 in Orlando, Florida, at the Caribe Royal Hotel.

2006: Linux and MS Windows Integration

In 2006, working in close technological cooperation with Microsoft, the companies moved forward in improving the interaction between Linux and Microsoft Windows.

2000: Large Enterprise Server OS Introduced

In 2000, SUSE introduced SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, a server operating system for large enterprises - it was the first globally distributed, compatible server operating system for enterprise environments.

1999: Partnership with IBM and SAP begins

In 1999, the company formed a partnership with IBM, which led to the creation of a number of projects - the most significant of which is the porting of Linux codes to mainframes. A year later, SUSE was the only company offering Linux operating systems for IBM mainframes, while they were prepared for work in large enterprises and had their own support service. Around the same time, SUSE established cooperation with the Linux laboratory SAP, which eventually became the first manufacturer of the Linux distribution, called the "Global Technology Partner of SAP."

1994: Release of the first S.u.S.E Linux 1.0 distribution

In 1994, SUSE released its first Linux distribution, S.u.S.E Linux 1.0. The next significant product was created in 1996 - S.u.S.E. Linux 4.2, first fully developed by SUSE, and not just translated into English.

1992: Three German students start a company

The founding date of SUSE is September 1992, when 3 German students are mathematicians, as well as one software engineer who has just graduated from the university created a company for development software and consulting on. operating system UNIX Noticing the potential, Linux the team decided to distribute operating systems Linux and offer technical support. They chose the name 'S.u.S.E,', using an acronym for the German term, which stands for "development ON and systems." The name was gradually shortened to "SUSE." SUSE ― a trademark of Inc. Novell USA in and other countries.

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