SuSE 9 Hits American Shores

SuSE Linux, until now known mainly as ‘that European flavor of Linux’ with many Americans, is getting ready for a big push with businesses and
government organizations, with the introduction of SuSE Linux 9 with 64-bit processing and 2.6 kernel enhancements to the Americas Thursday.

The product has been available online since Oct. 24, but has just now reached U.S., Canada and South American retailers.

Analysts expect the various Linux vendors to expand in coming years outside their mostly territorial niches (Red Hat in the U.S., SuSE in Europe and
Mandrake in Russia) and go global.

The goal: capturing big-dollar accounts for the increasingly-popular open source operating system; while commercial versions of the Linux kernel
aren’t free, they are significantly more inexpensive than today’s proprietary systems.