49ers, Novell!, Google, SAP and SUSE

20 years ago, that's 1999 ;-) I received the President Award from Eric Schmidt, yep that Eric the Google/Alphabet executive then CEO of Novell. I was surprised by Eric's voice message on my phone that I replayed at least 3 times! I was so excited and kind of wondering about it that I forgot to call my VP who nominated me (I knew later). Winners were invited to California, I think somewhere in San Jose, to attend a dinner event with Eric Schmidt and Novell executives for the award ceremony. Eric invited Ronnie Lott, an American former professional football player who was a San Francisco 49ers No. 42. Obviously, for the handful of international winners, at least for me, the American football, teams and players are to be explored! Fast forward, I received an American football 49ers' ball signed by Ronnie and Eric handed me an envelope with Novell stock options, a lot of them, that I did not cash any of them ;-) hehehe this is another story.

How come I remember about this now?

Earlier this week, I happened to read the following blog from SUSE's website: "The San Francisco 49ers: What do SAP and SUSE have to do with American Football?". Et voilà! The blog triggered my memory about the 49ers ball signed by Ronnie. I went upstairs to pick it up from the cupboard and here it is (for you in photos). This 49ers ball now "represents" many years of my professional experience.

I worked 10 years for Novell and last 15 years I continue to enjoy working for SUSE where I managed the SAP global alliance for the first 8 years. So, San Francisco 49ers is a SUSE customer while SAP and Google Cloud are SUSE global alliance partners.

Now what?

I plan to give this valuable 49ers ball signed by Ronnie to a 49ers' fan who's company is a joint SUSE and SAP customer. Not a big deal for many of you but most likely big one for the fan of 49ers and Ronnie. I reached out to our social media leader to consider some ideas in selecting the future owner.

Welcome your ideas ;-)

NB: I am grateful for the professional experience that Novell and SUSE offered me since 25 years and more to come. This has been made possible because of customers and partners (like SAP). A shout out to Eric Schmidt and Ronnie Lott for the Award Event.