A view from Brainshare 2008
Data Centers and Fossas
Novell vendors, developers, and users exchanged metaphors and business cards in Salt Lake City.
About 5,500 people from 60 countries arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah the week of March 17 for Brainshare 2008, Novell's signature partner and marketing event. The show rolled out a fairly typical trade show floor, and the guests kept busy with a well-attended series of breakout sessions. One of the more entertaining elements of Brainshare this year was the "World of Warcraft" theme; quite a few attendees and trade show booths enthusiastically embraced this theme; a number of booths also played up the "Guitar Hero" theme – proving that Novell is still making room for the young and geeky.
Breakout
The best element of Brainshare was the breakout sessions, which involved more than just the latest tech talk. Vendors made an effort to go the extra mile: At these breakout sessions, Novell's customers and developers can mix and mingle together. Several times, I saw a presenter casually request a feature in a product (e.g., ZenWorks or GroupWise), only to have one of the actual developers stand up and say something like, "Let me know what you're looking for, and we'll see what we can do."
In the DNA
Last year, Brainshare was all about how Novell's SLES and SLED Linux distros worked, played, and thrived in everyone's ecosystem. The talk then was about virtualization, identity management, and interoperability – the underlying point being that the Microsoft deal was good for Novell and good for Linux (and also good for Microsoft).
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
openSUSE Tumbleweed Ditches AppArmor for SELinux
If you're an openSUSE Tumbleweed user, you can expect a major change to the distribution.
-
Plasma 6.3 Now Available
Plasma desktop v6.3 has a couple of pretty nifty tricks up its sleeve.
-
LibreOffice 25.2 Has Arrived
If you've been hoping for a release that offers more UI customizations, you're in for a treat.
-
TuxCare Has a Big AlmaLinux 9 Announcement in Store
TuxCare announced it has successfully completed a Security Technical Implementation Guide for AlmaLinux OS 9.
-
First Release Candidate for Linux Kernel 6.14 Now Available
Linus Torvalds has officially released the first release candidate for kernel 6.14 and it includes over 500,000 lines of modified code, making for a small release.
-
System76 Refreshes Meerkat Mini PC
If you're looking for a small form factor PC powered by Linux, System76 has exactly what you need in the Meerkat mini PC.
-
Gnome 48 Alpha Ready for Testing
The latest Gnome desktop alpha is now available with plenty of new features and improvements.
-
Wine 10 Includes Plenty to Excite Users
With its latest release, Wine has the usual crop of bug fixes and improvements, along with some exciting new features.
-
Linux Kernel 6.13 Offers Improvements for AMD/Apple Users
The latest Linux kernel is now available, and it includes plenty of improvements, especially for those who use AMD or Apple-based systems.
-
Gnome 48 Debuts New Audio Player
To date, the audio player found within the Gnome desktop has been meh at best, but with the upcoming release that all changes.