Now independent from previous owner Micro Focus International PLC, SUSE is out to make its presence more deeply felt with developers and innovators. Its biggest competitors, Red Hat Inc. and Microsoft Corp., have developed impressively broad, varied portfolios. Can SUSE pull any tricks from its Linux-distro hat interesting enough to compete for the attention of leading-edge, developer-driven IT departments?

Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, SUSE is busily engaging with its community, according to Melissa Di Donato, chief executive officer of SUSE. “Open source is developing a community that often times does not sit together. And now we’re really trying to engage with that community as much as possible to keep innovation alive, to keep collaboration alive,” Di Donato said.

SUSE will collaborate and integrate with its developer community in 2020, as well as sharpen its focus on Linux use cases at the edge, such as autonomous driving, Di Donato added.

Di Donato spoke with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the SUSECON Digital event. They discussed how to drive engagement in open-source communities and how SUSE is infusing its portfolio with artificial intelligence, edge technology and more. (* Disclosure below.)

Driving innovation

SUSE has recently opened up a community to developers with content around Linux, DevOps, containers, Kubernetes, microservices and more. It has also introduced the SUSE Cloud Application Platform Developer Sandbox. 

“We wanted to make it easy for these developers … to benefit from the best practices that evolved from the cloud-native application delivery that we offer every day … to customers  — and now for free to our developers,” Di Donato said. “You can expect SUSE to enter new markets like powering autonomous vehicles with safety-certified Linux and other really innovative technologies.” 

For example, SUSE is carving out fresh terrain through its partnership with Electrobit Wireless Communications Oy, a leading provider of embedded software solutions for automotive. The two companies will be working on the use of safety-certified Linux in self-driving cars. Also, next quarter the company will announce a solution for simplifying the integration of AI building blocks into software. 

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

Photo: SiliconANGLE