The Suse Linux co-founder has left Novell, the company
that acquired the German Linux company in 2003.
Hubert Mantel has resigned from the company in the aftermath of
a 10% cut in the Novell workforce last week. It is believed Mantel
wasn't happy with the direction of the company.
It had been predicted that the cuts would affect the Linux
development team in Germany, even though Novell is committed to
placing more emphasis on Linux development, in the face of falling
sales from its traditional networking products, including
Netware.
Mantel was the leading maintainer of the Suse Linux kernel,
although he had a large team around him, enabling the company to
comfortably carry on development work.
Another key Suse person believed to have left Novell is Chris
Schlaeger, vice president of research and development at Suse
Linux, although Novell hasn’t confirmed it.
As well as putting greater effort into building up its Suse
Linux business, which is number two in the market behind Red Hat,
Novell is also looking to restructure or sell off its modestly
performing Celerant consulting group.
This move could increase the number of jobs going.
Novell has delayed the reporting of its year-end results to 1
December and the industry is expecting another poor set of figures
for the year ending 31 October.
In the third quarter Novell reported a 91% profits dive as well
as reduced sales.