A Tide in the Affairs of Novell

Novell Inc, the Utah-based software company has been in the news this year.
The reasons? Ah well, bite this–A $266 million all-stock acquisition of
Cambridge Technology Partners, a prominent e-business consulting outfit; a new
CEO in Jack Messman from CTP with tech visionary Eric Schmidt exiting (but
retaining position as chairman); a September rollout of its next generation
product NetWare 6.0, which has been receiving favorable if not rave reviews; and
more recently, a suit against Microsoft for making and distributing false and
misleading statements about Novell and its products in violation of state and
federal laws.

And yet, there are questions if the company is still in the reckoning. In the
90s, Novell had controlled over 70% of the network infrastructure market.
Unfortunately, this is now down to 20%. It then staked claim on the network OS
market and had everything going for it–the cash, technology, market momentum;
but these were frittered away in areas that didn’t add strength to the
company. Meanwhile, Microsoft ascended its position in the server OS market and
has been winning both mind-share and market-share and Novell’s faint whispers
got subdued in the high-decibel marketing unleashed by the likes of Microsoft,
other Unix variants and more recently Linux.

All is not lost though. For the past two years, one can see a coherence in
Novell’s vision as articulated through OneNet–a world in which all types of
networks are accessible to customers, partners, and employees at all times, from
any location, and from any device. Novell has been re-architecting itself to be
a Net services and e-business solutions company. Slowly, over the past three
years, Novell has been rolling out capabilities that consolidate its position in
the Net services market. Novell stands a strong chance of being back in CIOs’
consideration with the commercial availability of NetWare 6.0 since September.
(See box–Novell before NetWare 6 and after NetWare 6)

The promise

For customers to adopt a new OS, the transition must be as
painless as possible. And NetWare 6.0 promises to deliver that. As one review
says–"You can drop it into your existing network without creating a
splash". Also NetWare 6 does not require clients to install any software,
so end-user installation is reduced to a few clicks on the Web browser. Says
Satyen Parikh, area director, Indian Subcontinent, Onward Novell, "NetWare
6 can be added into an existing network to provide specific services to the
customer with no rip-and-replace required".

The new NetWare’s openness is its most important feature.
Using the desktop’s basic networking protocols, NetWare 6 presents itself to
desktops running Linux, Mac, and Windows. NetWare’s eDirectory supports all
Internet clients and eDirectory server runs on all common Internet servers.
Besides NetWare is based around standard protocols-like HTTP, XML, Java, WAP,
and the like and as such will connect to just about anything.

Another endearing and powerful feature in NetWare 6 is the
iFolder. It makes files available on your workstation, or any other device
wherever you are and automatically synchronizes those files to a server at the
backend. That is, one needs to simply save files on the desktop even when
off-line, and your files will automatically get encrypted and stored.

Printing has also been simplified when you can print by
simply pointing to the printer on a printer map and the rest is handled
automatically–checking whether you have the right printer driver and
installing it if required, and even executing the print over the Internet.

The feature is expected to dramatically reduce printing costs
and the number of printing-related calls user make to the help-desk.

The case of Novell vs Microsoft

Novell has filed a lawsuit in the US district court in Salt Lake city against Microsoft Corp for making and distributing false and misleading statements about Novell and its products in violation of state and federal laws. Novell is seeking injunctive relief to immediately stop dissemination of the false and misleading statements by Microsoft, in addition to seeking corrective advertising, a recall of the false advertising and unspecified money damages. Microsoft’s campaign of disparagement and falsehoods appears to be its response to Novell’s recent introduction of NetWare 6. Microsoft’s false statements were contained in a marketing piece shaped like a breakfast cereal box that it recently distributed to a large number of Novell customers across the country. The box was headlined "Microsoft Server Crunch" and on it were printed a number of false and misleading statements, including: "What’s the expiration date on that NetWare platform? As a result of the recent Cambridge Technology Partners merger, Novell is shifting its focus from software development to consultancy services. You are left with the server platform without the full support of its manufacturer. Which means increasing costs as it rapidly becomes obsolete, forcing you to implement time consuming retrofits." "These questions and statements are completely false and misleading." Said Stewart Nelson, executive vice-president and chief operating officer, Novell. "Microsoft has tried to create a fictitious end of life for NetWare to create fear and uncertainty within Novell’s customer base and to discourage future customers from doing business with Novell. While corporate America has long grown used to Microsoft’s bullying business tactics, with this campaign Microsoft has crossed well over the line. These misrepresentations about Novell, its products and product support go far beyond comparative advertising and we believe are clear violations of state and we believe are clear violations of state and Federal law." By the time of writing, Novell, of course, has won its victory.

For gaining industry-strength clustering and scalability,
NetWare 6 has enhanced its capabilities with proven support for up to 32
clustered servers with up to 32 processors each, making five-nines uptime a
reality. Similarly storage services have become an important consideration in
buying a server and NetWare 6 with its Novell Storage Services supports billions
of volumes and directories, with each volume capable of holding billions of
files that can grow up to as much as eight terabytes in size.

Spreading it thick

Microsoft has set in motion its marketing guns for XP and
.NET in India, Novell’ considers its own marketing efforts for NetWare 6
adequate enough. Onward Novell has trained over 900 system engineers in 12
cities on NetWare 6 and has briefed over 1,100 IT professionals round the
country. A round of evangelistic session keynoted by Bob Spearman, VP, market
development, Novell Inc, received an enthusiastic response from over 600 IT
managers. Around more than 75 Indian organizations had been enrolled in the
NetWare 6 Beta program.

Easwaradas Satyan in
Mumbai