I think the IBM acquisition is a fantastic opportunity for SUSE to start their engines here in the US. They have a fantastic value proposition: start with openSUSE Leap for free, then upgrade to a paid SUSE contract (can be done on place). This should appeal to CentOS and Fedora users who consider using RHEL, but don't because it's too hard to switch. They can also appeal to people who don't need the IBM integration but feel like they're not getting as much attention as before (priorities will likely change at RedHat). They can also appeal to developers with their rolling Tumbleweed release (which can also convert to openSUSE Leap/SUSE).

If SUSE had publicly traded stocks, I'd consider buying in right now as they have a really good opportunity over the next few years to steal customers from RedHat/IBM. They're big Linux contributors (Greg Kroah-Hartman used to work on the project), so they are _very_ attractive.