Year of Dragon is Year of SUSE

2012 is a big year for SUSE.  So far this year we’ve announced several key milestones – from over one million software appliance builds using SUSE Studio to our first annual SUSE conference (aptly titled SUSECon).  Yes, 2012 is shaping up to be, “The Year of SUSE.”  Not only is 2012 the Year of the Dragon (forefather to our celebrity-status chameleon mascot Geeko), SUSE as a company is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

We’re “Geeko’d” about our progress as a company and would like to thank the partners and customers featured in this fantastic slideshow – SUSE Linux Marks 25 Milestones in 20 Years – from Darryl K. Taft over at eWeek.  Among the highlights we’re proud to share:

• September 1992: Three German university math students and a recently graduated software engineer form a company to develop software, selecting the name “S.u.S.E,” using an acronym for a German term that meant software and systems development. The name was eventually shortened to “SUSE.”
• 2000: Geeko is born.  After a four-week “naming contest,” the name Geeko is selected out of 2000 proposals. A gecko is a kind of lizard, and the name refers to “geek” (but also was an allusion to one member of the SUSE management team at that time, Vice President of Technology Partners, later CTO of SUSE, Juergen Geck, whose nickname was Gecko).
• 2002: SUSE Linux AG celebrates its 10th anniversary, featuring some 300 prominent guests and open-source leaders. Among them: Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Novell and IBM.
• 2004: SUSE Linux is named the “Best Distribution for Beginners” at the Linux New Media Awards during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Frankfurt, Germany. The same year, Novell completes the acquisition of SuSE Linux AG.
• 2005: SUSE launches the openSUSE open-source project, allowing programmers and users to test and help contribute toward the development of its community and commercial versions.
• 2006: With the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, SUSE for the first time integrates and supports an enterprise-ready virtualization technology—Xen—with a Linux distribution.
• 2007: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 wins the SIIA CODiE Award for “Best Open Source Solution.”
• 2009: SUSE is the first Linux distributor to include Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology as a technical preview with the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.
• 2011: Novell is acquired by The Attachmate Group, which re-establishes SUSE as an autonomous business unit.

As you can see, the 20-year history of SUSE is rich with long-time partnerships, winning solutions, ongoing community contributions and customer successes.  What’s your favorite SUSE memory?  Please share!