SUSE’s Ecosystem and the Global Demand for Digital Sovereignty

Hey everyone, we're back here at SUSEcon. It's day two, or day three if you count zero. But whatever.

It's actually Wednesday, and if that makes it easier for you. " I've got two folks from SUSE I want to introduce you to. They both are in the SUSE ecosystem house.

And one of the things you realize when you cover SUSE and you cover SUSEcon, this is the second or third SUSEcon I'm covering, is the strength of the ecosystem. And part of that is because of its open roots, I believe, and the power of the open source community. Part of it is also, well, Linux and how Linux, and what SUSE has built.

They have been welcoming of partners rather than trying to doing everything themselves, and it reflects in the products. It reflects in everything from the top down. But I don't want to steal their thunder.

Let me introduce you first to Hayley. And Hayley, if you wouldn't mind looking into that camera and introducing yourself. Hello, everybody.

My name is Hayley Weinzac. I run our global partner programs and success at SUSE. Been here for 11 months now.

Been a whirlwind. Really enjoying it. I've come from a long history in IT.

Actually, originally started in tech support, Alan, believe it or not. I believe it. And been with Ecosystem for at least the last 20 years.

Good for you, and welcome. Next to Hayley, we have Astor. Astor, why don't you introduce yourself?

Yeah. I'm Astor Niemelen Karlberg. I'm the director for open source sovereignty with SUSE.

So I've been with SUSE for, I think it's my fifth week. But I have around 10 years of work in something that was once very niche, the politics and policies of open source and open standards. But now, of course, in the moment of digital sovereignty, has, let's say, gotten a completely new level of relevance.

So I'm very happy to not just talk about open source and digital sovereignty, but be with a company that's actually building it and doing something about it. Love it. I love it.

If you don't mind, I want to start at the broader, full-on ecosystem, and then I want to come back and really focus in on the whole digital sovereignty, the whole... I don't even want to say digital sovereignty. Let's call it just sovereignty issue, and how it, in some ways, transcends our kind of normal way of thinking about an ecosystem, right?

Because I think for a lot of folks out here, we're all in the tech world a long time, when we think ecosystem, we think of channel partners, we think of technology partners, strategic partners, go to market with. When we think about a lot of the stuff you're dealing with, there's a whole different level of ecosystem, a broadening of that, where we're talking about public-private partnerships, whether they be government, not-for-profit foundations, et cetera. But Hayley, I started this thing off by saying one of the strengths, I think, of SUSE is the strength of its ecosystem.

Yeah. Talk to us about that, and it's not easy nurturing, feeding, and caring for an ecosystem . Absolutely.

So talk to us. Yeah. Well, SUSE's success is its ecosystem.

The ecosystem of partners, 98% plus of our bookings is with and through our partners. So they are our lifeblood for our company. And our technology and the value that our partners bring around our technology, that's the value that our customers buy.

That's what helps them progress and grow their businesses. So in terms of how we work with our partners, we've had an award-winning program for the last six years, the SUSE One Partner Program. We're really now pivoting that to be ready to really be able to help our partners leverage everything they can do around digital sovereignty, and that's a really exciting place to be.

Yesterday, we launched our Sovereign Specialization on top of our SUSE One Program. This is initially targeted towards those managed service providers and building those resilient SUSE-based sovereign stacks. But we're also working very quickly around that with our SIs and our GSIs.

And I think to your earlier point, that point about we think of our partners traditionally as our channel partners, those transactional partners, we really have to think about a whole ecosystem or ecosystem here. Because we know from the Omdia research that the average customer now has seven trusted partners that they work with. So if you're only looking at those partners that transact, you're missing the partners that are really driving that value, and that is something that SUSE is paying very close attention to, and really making sure that we are working and understanding that value and working closely to help those partners accelerate that value, and bring that value into customers.

I love it. Astor, let's get what you're doing on the table, and we can dive back in, Hayley. Look, certainly sovereignty is one of the lead...

Sovereignty, resiliency, and a lot of times they're using them interchangeably here, is the story of the show. So it's important. Let me hear what you're doing and what your team is doing with this.

I realize you're fairly new to SUSE, but this is two important thing. How is this sort of transcending the normal, as I said, the normal way we think about an ecosystem partner? Well-So an important thing to consider here is that the idea of sovereignty, there's nothing new here.

Without getting too historical here, we can go back to the 17th century, but we're talking very deep-seated, the top priorities of any nation state. Now, let me not get stuck in a history lesson, but actually looking into what is happening now. Well, together with energy security, together with defense, together with food security of a nation, IT is now part of that conversation.

That is the essential shift that has happened. Yes, we can discuss different triggers, what has really put it higher up on the agenda, where is the urgency right now coming from? I think most of us know deep down it is also this, as citizens, an emotional reaction.

And it's not just a European conversation. This is very important to underscore. But what that means for SUSE and our ecosystem is that DNA, the ecosystem approach that SUSE has, is equally relevant in these broader conversations.

Yes, we're already very active for decades in the open source foundations and the ecosystem around actually building the code together, right? But right now, governments, large enterprises in critical sectors and beyond are looking for those partners, and like Hayley said, it's not just one. They're looking for trusted partners to help them turn their sovereignty concerns into sovereignty strategies, into sovereignty action.

And I think we're right now somewhere from the research that we've seen, 98% of the enterprise customers that we've talked to are identifying and acknowledging the concern. But so far, only half of them have moved to the point of actually completing a strategy. So with some, we're at the stage of putting this into action, and with some, we're helping them developing this.

But what's interesting here is that also 94% of them are identifying open source. I'll come back to this. Open source as being extremely critical in any sovereignty or resilience conversation.

And to then explain a little bit more what I'm doing and what our team is doing is that that realization is not just happening in boardrooms. Let me say, IT departments have known this for a long time, that open source is good for resilience. This is now a boardroom discussion and realization, but it's also a political realization.

In a month, we'll have the EU Tech Sovereignty package coming out of the EU. Together with the Cloud and AI Development Act, with the CHIPS Act, with the Data Center Strategy, Europe will come out with an open source strategy as the second jurisdiction in the world after China to have one. This is right there, right at the center of the sovereignty conversation.

So, you bring together the ecosystem approach of SUSE, our 33 years of just open source expertise. The relevance is right here. That's why I'm with SUSE.

There's a lot of things to do, and we are not only looking for partners at the political space in industry. They're coming to us, and they're looking for that deep expertise of open source, open standards, and how that changes the postures of organizations and, by extension, nations when it comes to digital sovereignty. Agree.

Excellent. I'm going to come back to that. But Hayley, I want to ask you, how would your traditional partners taking this message, internalizing it, going to market, right?

Are they saying, "Yes, this is what we need to do," and they're hand-in-hand here with a go-to-market strategy around sovereignty, or are they saying, "Hey, SUSE, good work. Go do the heavy lifting. " It happens.

Yeah. So honestly, I think we're, and Aster, we were talking about this earlier, but the definitions of sovereignty and there's data sovereignty, and then there's all the various elements of sovereignty. So our ecosystem represents that diverse perspective.

So they are looking for us to be an orchestrator, and I think we can really support them through that with things like the program approach. But they are already doing great things. We already have partners out there that are creating sovereign solutions.

ISV's doing this. We have our managed service providers already providing stacks that are sovereign and thinking about those issues for customers. We have our GSIs and our systems integrators really looking at what those services are.

Because some of the problems that the customers are experiencing is how do they access the skills? How do they stay on top of this regulatory compliance side of things? So they want to outsource that because they've got this big thing called AI that they need to also be investing in, and the boards are really concerned about.

So we can help because we understand and have the technology that brings that together. As an orchestrator across that ecosystem, our partners trust us. We trust our partners.

Our customers trust our partners. And so, yes, the sovereignty specialization that we've done is one part. But the other thing that we did significantly yesterday is we opened up our product catalog to be a services catalog so that actually we can capture everything that's going on in that true open source way.

The innovation happens everywhere. So we act as the aggregator. We bring that together.

We start to help be the orchestrator, connect those partners. Our partners are the ones that are driving the value here. Sure.

We've got the platform, see, and we're bringing expertise and points of view, and it's been great. And hearing our partners and our customers talking here today, I think the clarity is happening for them, and they understand that we can help them now progress to action. Agreed.

So here's the thing, I wrote about this in an article today. I think the opportunity for SUSE, though, as you said, I think you used the term orchestrate. The opportunity here is for SUSE to lead, to become the focal point, at least in the European digital sovereignty.

There's an argument to be made there's a digital... The same study you cited with the 98 or 99%, I think it was high 30% of US organizations also believe sovereignty, digital sovereignty is an important thing, and it's a little different. Where here in Europe, they're probably more concerned about independence from a US digital infrastructure.

In the US, we're worried about China. Yes. But nevertheless, a similar kind of thing.

How does that then translate to public policy? You mentioned all of these things in the EU. We've seen companies lobby, try to work that public-private partnership.

Yeah. I don't know if traditionally that was... We didn't think of that as SUSE's ecosystem, let's put it that way.

Yeah. Right? Thanks.

But now it certainly is. And when you're dealing with public, whether it's not-for-profit foundations, like the Linux Foundation or CNCF, or governments like the EU legislature, you don't want to go in alone. You want to go in with your partners hand in hand because you want to represent a broad spectrum.

Yeah. Is that part of your job, too, to make sure that that ecosystem, you're walking in hand in hand with them? Absolutely.

At the end of the day, there are elements of the conversations we're having here that is policy innovation. Yeah. We're looking to do...

The concern is real, not just among politicians. This isn't just made up there. It's touching people, like I said, in their everyday life.

My relatives are asking me about these things. Really? The question is real around it.

Are we over-dependent, et cetera? And so, just like in our day-to-day business practices, these political conversations or policy conversations, we're not having them alone. So SUSE is not inherently a lobbying organization.

No. But what is happening is the governments, and again, not just in Europe, are approaching SUSE because of its 33-year history with open source and open standards because the penny has dropped. This matters.

But taking it from this matters, and this is an important tool, into how to actually operationalize it. Because here, there are many different ways you can approach any kind of sovereignty, be it regulation, frameworks, directives, you name it, right? SUSE is not changing its message.

It's just saying, "Do you want sovereignty as a individual user, as a large enterprise organization, or as a nation state? " It's the same message we've always had. What we're having now is governments, large organizations in critical sectors, publicly owned companies, companies in the critical sectors of society, also actively reaching out to us to hear what we have to say.

And I can tell you, we have a lot to say. And this is not just me saying it. You just go into within just the company of SUSE and individuals' longstanding expertise in certain topics, and they're from the open source ecosystem, and the experts from other companies, sometimes competitors, that have thought long and hard about this.

There is a very important message that won't just resonate in Europe, it will resonate across the world because it's true. Well, no, and I'll tell you why though, too. In the last interview I did, we were talking about it, the gentleman from Casa Logic.

When we talk about sovereignty like this, what you're really talking about is freedom. Yeah. And freedom doesn't go out of style, right?

Freedom, when Czechoslovakia was part of the USSR, Eastern Europe bloc, people here understood and wanted their freedom. They didn't even call it sovereignty. They wanted freedom.

Yes. And when I think when we talk about these sovereign issues, what we're really talking about is freedom. And not just at the government level or the state level, we're talking at the company level, at the individual level.

Where do I want my information? Who's going to be able to decide who has access to my information? That's personal sovereignty.

Yeah. Personal freedom. And I recommend this to everyone out here.

When you hear the word sovereignty, substitute freedom and see if it makes sense to you. Because if it does, then you know it's the right thing because you never want to be on the wrong side of freedom, right? No.

And to SUSE's, what we've all been talking about is the freedom gives you choice. Yes. And that's what- Everybody wants choice.

Yep. And that's what freedom is. Yep.

Choice to be able to do what you think is best for you. And if you link into the political conversation and the technical conversations and the boardroom conversations, there's a lot of uncertainty out there. There's a lot of complexity.

Sure. It's an ever-changing situation. But that doesn't mean...

You don't handle uncertainty by just waiting. No. There are ways of handling uncertainty, and it will come down to the core messages that we want to get out here during SUSECON.

Exit velocity. How fast can you leave a situation you're not happy with if the external circumstances change? And how fast can you pivot?

And again, we'll keep on coming back. This is the core message that SUSE's had for 30 years. And it's very exciting to just be- Right here, right now at this time ...

a continued messenger of this essential truth. Well, timing is everything, right? And that's why we're here.

Speaking of timing, we're about out of it. We could talk all day, but we have to end it. Thank you both for coming here on Techstrong TV.

We appreciate it. Keep up the great work. It's a great ecosystem.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Alan.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Hey, we're going to take a break here on Techstrong TV. We got more coming at you all day today.

We still have tomorrow. tv. Go check them out.

But we're going to take a break. This is Alan Schimmel, we'll be right back.