Novell and its affiliates from GWAVA have recently uploaded various Novell commercials to YouTube, essentially imitating some of that marketing (arguably 'spam') which Microsoft does there too. Rather than linking to it (feeding it), this behaviour will just be pointed out occasionally.

More interesting was probably Novell's attendance at OSCON, which was not felt much. It was definitely dominated by Canonical among the Linux vendors, but then again, Ubuntu Live was canceled, so they had stuff scheduled for display. Here is Novell's press release about its presence.

Novell today announced its participation in OSCON 2008, July 21-25 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Ore. With sponsorship of projects such as Bandit, Kablink, Mono and openSUSE; contributions to approximately 50 open source projects including GNOME, KDE and the Linux kernel; and active membership in more than 27 open-standards setting organizations, Novell is committed to promoting the growth of open source in all levels of the IT infrastructure. Through demonstrations and presentations, attendees will learn about a few of Novell's most innovative open source solutions and projects.

More about SUSE at OSCON in the next post.

Virtualisation

EMC seemed suspicious before and skepticism now seems justified. Here is a new article about acquisition talks where Novell is mentioned also. This could -- however remote that possibility may seem now -- serve a role as another Microsoft-EMC-Novell bridge some time in the future.

Avamar Data Store 2 doubles the capacity per server node up to 32 TB, which EMC claims will support up to 250 daily full backups of VMware, file servers and remote-office data. In addition to remote support and notification, Avamar 4.0 added support for 64-bit Red Hat Linux 4, and expanded client support for SQL, Vista, NetWare native client, Novell Storage servers and Novell Open Enterprise servers.

Security & Identity Management

At least a couple of vulnerabilities were reported, but most important was probably the flow of articles about Kablink, which so far we've known as "ICEcore". Here is the press release.

The workflow code was contributed by Novell, a sponsor of the Kablink project, and as part of the Kablink collaboration suite will help users save time, reduce human error and improve overall efficiency in their organizations.

This is also available from here. The article from Sean Michael Kerner states:

Some names just aren't "cool" enough for open source. Case in point: Novell's ICEcore collaboration project, which is now known as Kablink.

The newly-renamed project is being expanded with workflow capabilities that Novell hopes will expand business usage.

There was also some going back to the multi-vendor alliance that involves, among several large players, Novell as well.

Oracle Makes Secure Web Access Management Push

[...]

The Oracle identity and access management bundle is a shot at securing Web-based cloud environments better than Oracle rivals Sun, CA, IBM and Novell.

Here is another article that calls Novell's technology in this domain "great".

Oracle isn't alone in this space. IBM still kills it on product and services. Identity is one of CA's healthiest businesses. Novell has great technology, and Microsoft is a sleeping giant. These guys won't lie down, but Oracle went from nowhere to become a market leader in three years. That won't change in the future.

People

People-centred news can be dull, but for completeness, here is a page serving as proof that Phil Juliano of Novell made the Who’s Who list in B-to-B 2008.

Juliano has been instrumental in leading Novell's brand positioning, marketing and advertising efforts. This year, he spearheaded a new campaign, "Making IT work as one," which is part of an overhaul of Novell's brand positioning. The campaign includes traditional components such as print and direct mail, as well as online and search marketing. Novell is also revamping its Web site this year.

Novell's staff at Provo is likely to enjoy some improved public transportation.

Tuesday night, council members voted 6-0 in favor of a resolution to construct Utah County's first bus rapid transit system along 100 West. The Utah Transit Authority on Monday opened the state's first bus rapid transit line along 3500 South, connecting Magna and West Valley City to TRAX. While nothing is set in stone, the Provo-Orem line will run north from Novell on 100 West to 700 North, eventually stopping somewhere on or near campus.

[...]

Buses will have a dedicated lane along the route and run every seven minutes. Similar to TRAX stations in Salt Lake County, UTA will build BRT stations periodically along the route with canopies and ticket dispensers. A round trip from Novell to UVU will take 35 mintues.

It's probably very hot there this time of the year. There's also quite a drought in Manchester at the moment.

Here is the journey of a former Noveller, Richard Francis. He becomes CFO at Day Software.

He has also held senior finance positions with Novell, Gillette and Duracell, and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte and Touche.

An interview with Eric Schmidt (Novell's CEO at the time... as the video is from 2000) has just shown up in YouTube.

It's interesting that he brought up the issue of tracking and privacy long before it became a huge concern (Phorm, Google, and IE7, for example, track people's every movement). He is now working at Google, which is notorious in that respect.

Lastly, here is an award-winning video.

The Novell Teaming + Conferencing video produced for our BrainShare 2008 event was recently awarded a bronze Telly Award. Prestigious awards in the advertising industry, the Telly Awards honor video and film production, as well as the best local, regional and cable television commercials and programs.

Next up: SUSE. ⬆