It's a rare occasion when someone important in the (software) industry decides not to support Linux,

For the last 10 (percent) to 15 percent of customers who may not want to upgrade, this (lifetime support) is important to them,

We ran into 20 different support contracts for a single vendor. We weren't getting economies of scale, and software licenses were very difficult to manage.

In the old days most software manufacturers provided free support for their programs--it used to be possible to call the WordPerfect Corporation on an 800 number to get free help. Nowadays, you have to have a credit card handy to get help.

SUSE Linux users, who number in the millions worldwide, continue to show their support by installing the software in great numbers and seeking more opportunities to collaborate with Novell.

We have developed special software and applications to support Chinese users but we won't launch specifically designed products for mainland users.