When Suse invented enterprise Linux

Someone asked me the other day: "When did Linux go mainstream, anyway?"

That's a good question. Maybe since 2011, when Hana came out exclusively on Suse Linux - or 2000, when Suse and IBM released the first Linux on the mainframe?

After all, that's why we're celebrating 16 years of Linux in the enterprise: today, Linux is the operating system in enterprise IT.

Windows is still prominent, but Linux is growing stronger. We have long since caught up with Unix in all functions and in some cases overtaken it - from administrability to performance.

Linux Lab with Suse and SAP

It all started in 1998: The first ports of Oracle and SAP to Linux got the ball rolling.

Linux in the Enterprise? The idea was contagious; a year later I started at Suse.

Linux distributions from Suse had been around since 1992, and now it was time to bring Linux to data centers in earnest.

In 1999, we entered into our first partnerships with IBM, SAP and Oracle. In the same year, Suse was the only Linux manufacturer to start the SAP Linux Lab as a co-founder - since then, other Linux providers have also joined, but they also left.

Suse remained loyal to SAP all along, which paid off, by the way.

Foresight from SAP and IBM

SAP was not the only company to recognize the potential of Linux: one year later, IBM ported Linux to the mainframe - with strong support from Suse.

It was not far between Nuremberg and IBM in Böblingen, and we got along very well. Linus Torvalds also gave his blessing - he too saw the advantage of developing and permanently maintaining Linux interfaces on the mainframe.

The development with IBM resulted in the world's first enterprise Linux in 2000: Suse Linux Enterprise. The next milestone came in the mid-2000s: the cooperation with Microsoft.

Suse had already won major customers, all running standardization projects in their data centers.

Then in 2006, Suse and Microsoft announced their collaboration. We wanted to help companies get off proprietary hardware and find their way to commodity hardware. The goal was x86, and for that there were only two operating systems - Windows and Linux.

The first time we showed up at one of our customers with Microsoft in tow, that was one of my favorite moments at Suse. I won't forget those faces.

It makes perfect sense, and we have never regretted our cooperation - to this day, Suse and Microsoft work well together.

Why was Suse the first Enterprise Linux?

There are two answers to this.

At one point, we were always interested in enterprise deployment. Suse already had consulting teams in large companies at the end of the 90s. We knew where the shoe pinched.

Suse managed to combine the fast development speed of open source, the high innovation, with a stable perspective suitable for enterprises.

We were the first to span the gap between support and innovation.

Today, the entire Linux development model has established itself as a standard. Open source projects such as OpenStack prove that users value freedom and guaranteed further development of their application in a large community.

That makes me proud - the efforts of the last 16 years have definitely paid off.