Novell Announces Judges for First Annual "Dister" Awards Celebrating Linux Innovators

Novell today announced the judging panel for the First Annual "Dister" Awards, a SUSE Studio contest celebrating innovators and inventors of Linux-based software appliances. Industry luminaries from Computerworld, eWeek, the Linux Foundation, openSUSE and Novell, will select and award each winner in the categories of "Community Use" and "Commercial Use" a $10,000 grand prize. In addition, due to unprecedented interest in the competition, Novell has extended the submission deadline to Nov. 1, 2010.

Chosen for their unique and valued industry perspectives, the judging panel consists of:

• Jason Brooks, Labs editor in chief at eWeek-- Jason covers wireless networking, office productivity software, mobile devices, desktops and notebooks.
• Jos Poortvliet, openSUSE Community manager -- Jos has several years of community building experience and is responsible for driving and growing the openSUSE project and serving as community liaison within Novell. Jos is also author of the nowwhatthe blog.
• Markus Rex, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions at Novell -- with more than a decade of experience within the Linux industry, Markus has been heavily involved in nearly all critical areas of Linux development, including engineering, product development, management and marketing, and executive leadership.
• Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, blogger and contributor -- Steven has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge, PC operating system; 300bps was a fast Internet connection; WordStar was the state of the art word processor. He is a frequent contributor and blogger for publications including Computerworld, ITWorld and ZDNet. His blogs include Cyber Cynic, Practical Technology and Networking.
• Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation -- Jim uses this experience to accelerate the adoption of Linux and support the future of computing. Jim has been recognized as one of the top 12 Linux and open source bloggers, is widely quoted in the press and is a regular speaker on Linux and the changing economics of the PC industry. He also pens Zemlin's Blog.

Since July 2009, approximately 500,000 Linux appliances were built using SUSE Studio, the industry's most successful web-based appliance creation tool with more than 85,000 registered users worldwide. SUSE Gallery serves as a centralized storefront where SUSE Studio users can browse, share and access appliances. Only SUSE Gallery offers software developers this opportunity to publish and promote their software appliances to millions of potential users.

To learn more about the First Annual "Dister" Awards visit www.novell.com/thedisters. For more information about the SUSE Appliance Program visit www.novell.com/appliances.

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL), a leader in Intelligent Workload Management, helps organizations securely deliver and manage computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments. We help customers reduce the cost, complexity, and risk associated with their IT systems through our solutions for identity and security, systems management, collaboration and Linux based operating platforms. With our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For more information, visit www.novell.com.