For many years, the branded motto for open-source giant SUSE Group was “Power of Many.” After SUSE’s acquisition of Kubernetes startup Rancher Labs Inc. today, a new motto — now prominently displayed on the websites of both companies — reads “Stronger. Together.”

“With the combination of Rancher and SUSE going forward, we’re going to be able to supply the enterprise container platform of choice for lots of customers,” said Sheng Liang (pictured), co-founder and chief executive officer of Rancher. “They not only completely understand and buy into our commitment to open source, but they are completely open in terms of supporting the whole ecosystem. That kind of mentality really resonated with us.”

Liang spoke today with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed Rancher’s cash position prior to the acquisition, comparisons with Red Hat Inc.’s OpenShift and the firm’s position in the enterprise Kubernetes market.

Cash-rich and competitive

The terms of the deal were not officially announced by either company, but one report on Wednesday pegged the price of the acquisition at between $600 million and $700 million. Liang would not comment on the price, but he did note that Rancher had not spent anything close to the $95 million it had previously raised.

“Rancher has been a very cash-efficient business,” Liang noted. “Even with the $95 million we raised, we really haven’t spent the majority of it. We’ve probably spent about a third of the money.”

The acquisition of Rancher will undoubtedly fuel comparisons between SUSE’s Kubernetes solution and OpenShift, Red Hat’s own container platform. Red Hat remains a top rival to SUSE in the Linux field. For his part, Liang is quite willing to contrast his technology with OpenShift.

“Red Hat did a lot of good things for open source, for Linux, for Kubernetes,” Liang said. “We don’t believe OpenShift by itself actually solves the kind of problem we’re seeing with customers today. That’s why, with as much investment that has gone into OpenShift, we just see no slowdown. In fact, we see an acceleration of demand for Rancher.”

Liang indicated that SUSE was likely attracted to Rancher’s popular reputation within the enterprise world and noted that the vast majority of his firm’s deals originated from prospects coming directly to the company. He also felt that Rancher’s laser focus on Kubernetes was a strong selling point.

“In our world, I like to think about Kubernetes as the standard for compute,” Liang said. “With open-source software, you develop a unique product that solves a real problem and then there’s no barrier to adoption. I just can’t wait to get going as soon as the deal closes.”

Here’s the complete video interview, one of many CUBE Conversations from SiliconANGLE and theCUBE:

Photo: SiliconANGLE