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Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part II: Novell Business Overview, New Activities and SCO

Overview



In quite a sparse post, Novell's CTO describes the company's strategy going forward.

In my last two postings, I introduced Novell’s future vision for an agile infrastructure to support computing and collaboration. I described the CIO motivation, eight use cases which make agility compelling, technology megatrends which make this possible, and the seven key technology areas which will allow the realization of this vision. These seven areas are: policy, identity, virtualization, Linux, orchestration, compliance and collaboration. In this posting, I will describe our roadmap for these seven areas.


There is a breakdown there which separates the main areas of operations. Some of the headings below are an attempt at separation as well.

SUSE Linux



Teradata turns out to be using SUSE Linux, which might be interesting in the future, especially in case the company gets mentioned again.

The 550 SMP scales up to 6 TB and is targeted at organizations looking to run a single application or to support test and development workloads. The system, which Teradata claims can be installed "within hours," runs on the Novell Suse Linux 64-bit operating system or Windows. The Teradata 12 database costs an additional $40,000 or more, depending on requirements.

The 2500 model is powered by dual-core Intel processors, and includes storage, Novell Suse Linux, and the Teradata database and utilities. All the technology is pre-installed in a single "ready to run" cabinet, Teradata said. The system can be used to complement an enterprise-level data warehouse to meet specific analytical needs.


SUSE Virtualisation and Appliances



Some days ago we wrote about rPath [1, 2], which fell into Novell's (and -- by association -- Microsoft's) arms. But Novell's virtualisation efforts are still broader than this and The Register has this new article about Novell appliances.

Through its Appliance Program, Novell said it will collaborate with ISVs to develop technology necessary to better make applications in an virtual appliance format. Novell will begin releasing software components over the coming months, including an automated tool to build appliances.


Some more on the virtualisation scene (Novell included) you can find here.

In a bid to bring about continuous innovation in virtualization, SAP has formed the Enterprise Virtualization Community, along with tech vendors AMD, Cisco, Citrix, EMC, HP, Intel Corporation, NetApp, Novell, Red Hat, Sun, and Vmware. The community will aim to develop new strategies for making business benefits of virtualization easily apparent.


Virtual Awards



Web site-awarded prizes have always been somewhat pointless and meaningless because of the process involved in granting them. Even nomination and voting are opaque. But Novell brags about this prize.

Novell was also named to the ASP's Web Support Hall of Fame, which honors sites that have been named among the "Ten Best" for at least four years.


In its PR blog, Novell also claims to have won another award.

TechTarget has announced the results of its prestigious Information Security magazine and SearchSecurity.com 2008 Readers’ Choice Awards (registration required). For the second year in a row, Novell Identity Manager took the top spot in the Identity and Access Management category.


Shades of Frost & Sullivan.

NetWare



NetWare is not forgotten yet and Prosoft's NetWare client has just become compatible with the latest version of Mac OS X.

Prosoft Engineering on Wednesday announced that the latest version of their NetWare Client for Mac OS X, version 2.0.1, is now available. A free update for users of version 2.0, NetWare Client costs US$149.


Identity Management



Over to identity, Dale Olds from Novell participates in the following event. It's nothing too significant really, but at least noteworthy.

If you are here in Munich, be sure to come by our three hour long session Wednesday afternoon on Context in Identity, as well as my opening “Putting Identity in Context” talk that morning. But just in the last couple of weeks the “aha” guy of this conference, Kuppinger-Cole’s Joerg Resch, has put together a dynamite panel for Thursday morning – I’ll be moderating while host Martin Kuppinger, Quest VP Jackson Shaw (ex-Microsoft), Symlabs co-founder Sampo Kellomaki, Radiant Logic CEO Michel Prompt and the Bandit Project’s (and Novell’s) Dale Olds talk about “Virtual Directories and Beyond.” Each of the participants have been deeply involved in virtual directory technology – Sampo and Michel created their companies’ virtual directory products, Jackson was formerly VP at Zoomit who’s VIA product became the Microsoft Metadirectory Service, and Dale has worked on both Novell’s virtual directory as well as the Bandit Project. Martin and I simply like to talk about virtual directories!


SCO-Novell Faceoff



Groklaw keeps track of the very vibrant proceedings that now involve a great deal of Novell in the SCO saga. Here are some selected items from the past week:

Another New, New Lawyer for SCO; and Novell and SCO Update Exhibits: The Trial is Near

Another lamb to the slaughter, I fear, another new lawyer on the SCO team in SCO v. Novell, who I'm guessing drew the short straw. New in both senses. He passed the bar in 2005, and here he is, walking into the buzz saw called Morrison & Foerster. He must have been very, very naughty as a little boy, to deserve such a fate.


Parties File Sealed Trial Briefs; Novell's Redacted Amended Trial Brief, as text

Comparing the two versions is interesting, in that we see Novell's carefulness in answering all that SCO has raised recently, including the argument that when it said UNIX System V, it meant UnixWare, because that is where UnixWare comes from. Novell points out that it doesn't matter where UnixWare came from, since SCO has only identified Unix System V pre-APA code as allegedly being in Linux.


SCO's Reply Memo in Support of its Motion for Judgment on Novell's 4th Claim

...what SCO fails to address is this: who is going to make SCO pay back Microsoft and Sun? I guess they get to sue SCO later or something, in SCO's universe.

However, this illustration leaves out the reality -- namely that Novell has not yet failed to ratify. It's a decision SCO wants them to have to make before they even have the money in hand, before there is even a decision to make, since the court has not yet ruled on whether or not SCO had the authority to enter into the agreements. If they did, the agreements can't be void, I don't think, no matter how many of Nathan's cars can fit on the head of a SCO pin.


Novell is still unlikely to see much (if any) money coming from SCO.

Staff Going Social



Some Novell executives receive credit for playing along with embarrassing things.

It takes a lot of guts for the CEO of one of the best-known software companies on the planet to go along with something like this, but I can tell you that he didn't hesitate for a nanosecond. Hovsepian has a terrific sense of humor that really says a lot about Novell's corporate culture. After watching the video of his boss, John Dragoon, Novell's chief marketing officer, wrote in an e-mail to me yesterday that having a sense of humor is "a prerequisite to work in this industry." I'd tweak that to say it's a prerequisite to be as highly regarded in this industry as Hovsepian is.


Dana Russell, whose role we often criticise, participated in a scouts event too.

Scouts learn skills at career expo



[...]

The keynote speaker was Dana Russell, the Chief Financial Officer of Novell Networks. “Open Doors to Career Paths” was his message. The Expo did just that by offering a variety of hands-on experiences for the scouts.


Hopefully he did not encourage the youngsters to exchange money with Microsoft for establishment of foolish and regrettable deals. ⬆

Comments

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