SUSECON 2025 in Orlando, Florida truly showcased SUSE’s commitment to open-source innovation across Linux, cloud-native technologies, edge computing, and artificial intelligence. This year’s event featured insights from key executives like CEO Dirk-Peter (DP) van Leeuwen, Chief Strategy Officer Frank Feldmann, and Chief Product Officer Thomas Di Giacomo, along with product leaders Rick Spencer, Keith Basil, and Peter Smails.
SUSE’s Vision for 2025
DP reiterated SUSE’s vision of providing customers freedom of choice, focusing on Linux, cloud-native computing, edge, and AI. Reflecting on 2024, he highlighted SUSE’s transition to a private company, significant investments in go-to-market strategies, and a strong financial performance, including a 15% increase in global bookings, a 33% EBITDA margin, and continued momentum in cloud-native and edge computing, with triple-digit growth in edge solutions. A few notable achievements included launching the company’s first SaaS offering, expanding SUSE AI, acquiring StackState for cloud observability, and securing major new customers such as Deutsche Bank, Switch, Rivian, and Philips 66. Looking ahead to 2025, SUSE is aiming to grow its Linux market share, accelerate cloud-native adoption, expand public cloud and SaaS offerings, and capture AI workloads.
Di Giacomo spoke about top priorities for enterprises which include modern application development, cost optimization, securing infrastructure, and leveraging AI. SUSE’s enterprise strategy is built on four pillars – Linux, cloud-native, edge, and AI – to differentiate itself through open and enterprise-ready solutions, integrated security and governance, and ease of use.
SUSECON 2025 Announcements
Several key product announcements were made at SUSECON, including SUSE Linux 15 SP7, which extends lifecycle support until 2037, and SUSE Linux 16, optimized for cloud-native and hybrid environments. Additionally, SUSE Multi-Linux Manager 5.1 introduced enhanced Ansible integration, while SUSE Multi-Linux Support now enables major version migrations.
SUSE also unveiled advancements in cloud-native technologies. The new SUSE Private Registry provides a secure container registry, while the DevX Validated Design initiative enhances developer experience with standardized blueprints. SUSE Certified Storage for Virtualization strengthens its cloud-native portfolio. Within the broader ecosystem, SUSE announced SUSE Rancher for SAP, Microsoft Sentinel integration for security event management, and Temenos certification to support financial institutions. SUSE Rancher Hosted, a fully managed SaaS offering for Rancher Prime, will be available in April 2025 to enable enterprises to streamline Kubernetes operations. The SUSE Application Collection on AWS also introduces pre-built, containerized applications, enhancing developer productivity. SUSE Cloud Observability, now available in AWS Marketplace, provides a managed observability platform tailored for cloud-native workloads.
What About AI and Edge?
AI was another primary focus at SUSECON 2025. SUSE introduced Agentic AI Workflows to streamline AI development, AI Observability for monitoring models, an expanded SUSE AI Library, and AI Guardrail Blueprints developed in collaboration with Infosys for responsible AI implementation. In partnership with Infosys and HPE, SUSE also launched an AI Infrastructure Solution to support enterprises deploying AI workloads.
In the edge computing space, SUSE announced SUSE Edge for Telco 3.2, featuring validated designs, extended lifecycle support, and production-ready Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) solutions tailored for telecommunications. Overall, SUSECON 2025 reinforced SUSE’s position as a leader in enterprise open-source innovation, with a clear focus on delivering choice, security, and modernization across Linux, cloud-native, edge, and AI.
What’s Next?
The enterprise open-source software market is poised for significant growth. Projections indicate an increase from $41.83 billion in 2024 to $48.92 billion in 2025, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.9%. This expansion shows the increasing adoption of open-source solutions across industries.
Within cloud computing, the integration of artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly prevalent. For instance, Alphabet has announced plans to invest approximately $75 billion in AI and cloud-computing infrastructure in 2025. Similarly, Oracle anticipates growth driven by the rising demand for advanced AI computing, with expectations of a 15% revenue increase in fiscal 2026 and 20% in 2027.These developments may indicate a broader industry trend towards integrating AI capabilities within cloud services.
Edge computing is also experiencing accelerated adoption, most notably to support IoT applications and reduce latency. The rollout of 5G technology has further fueled the growth of edge computing, enabling real-time data processing closer to the source.Projections suggest that the proportion of real-time data processed will reach 30% by the end of 2025 which further emphasizes the critical role of edge computing in handling the increasing data volumes generated by IoT devices.
The convergence of open-source software, AI, cloud-native technologies, and edge computing is completely reshaping the enterprise technology landscape. SUSE’s strategic focus on these domains positions the company to meet evolving enterprise demands, drive innovation, and maintain a competitive edge moving forward.
