10.18.08

Do-No-Evil Saturday – Part IV: Miscellaneous Novell News

Posted in Courtroom, Finance, Identity Management, Mail, Marketing, Novell, SCO, Videos at 7:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Let’s dive right in because it’s getting late and there is a lot more to cover.

SCO

No legal news from the Novell/SCO case, but SCO appears to have just touted a little new arrangement.

FCmobilelife(TM) to be Sold Through T-Mobile(R) Concept Stores

SCO mobile application provides users with a new and unique collaboration tool providing real-time connectivity to appointments, goals, multimedia blogs and task lists LINDON, Utah, Oct. 15

SCO has products?!?!?!

Finance

We covered the movement (mere fluctuations) of NOVL on several occasions throughout the past week. It was also mentioned here.

Today, we have once again scheduled interviews with a number of the top analysts in North America to get updated feedback from them regarding the current market activity and position on Novell Inc. (NASDAQ: NOVL), ON Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: ONNN), Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) and Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ: ADBE).

Netware

In Heise’s rather comprehensive look at the history of Windows, the author comes across Novell’s past role.

Windows for Workgroups 3.11 – November 1993

What often got called “WfWg three-eleven” was when Windows started to grow up. Although still based on DOS, the whole product was aimed at 386s. Also, the project to build the 386-based Windows 4 was already running badly late, so chunks of its code got grafted onto the now-aging Windows 3 base. WfWg 3.11 had 32-bit file access, which brought the whole FAT filesystem into Windows, complete with an integrated disk cache. It also had a 32-bit network stack, including one optional extra that wasn’t yet significant to most users – TCP/IP32, a 32-bit Windows version of the up-and-coming TCP/IP network protocol. Most PC networks still used Microsoft’s NetBEUI or Novell’s IPX/SPX, though – even the hugely popular PC game Doom ran over IPX and nothing else.

Windows NT 3.1 – July 1993

The first version of Microsoft’s new flagship 32-bit OS was given the same version number as the DOS version, partly to avoid the scary “1.0″ version number, and partly because Microsoft had agreements with certain partners, such as Novell, that only covered Windows up to 3.1. This mattered because several big players – including Novell, whose Netware server OS was the dominant player in PC networking – didn’t support the new NT OS.

Virtualisation

It’s worth keeping an eye on Xen, which is now owned by a very loyal Microsoft partner and is working closely with Microsoft and Novell. Kensho makes its first appearance and there also this:

OVF has been jointly developed by VMware, Citrix, Microsoft and Novell; it defines a VM’s metadata as well as how VMs are configured. OVF-compliant VMs can move seamlessly between hypervisors from different vendors, such as VMware’s ESX, Microsoft’s Hyper-V, Citrix’ XenServer and the open source Xen hypervisor, used by multiple vendors like Virtual Iron, Novell, Sun, Oracle and others.

Mail

This is still all about the GroupWise stuff, which seems to come up in articles about BlackBerry, including for example:

1. T-Mobile Selling BlackBerry Flip

The Flip is still a BlackBerry, so it will have integrated access for push corporate e-mail, and it works with Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus, Novell, Web-based e-mails, and more.

2. RIM Ramps Up BlackBerry Certifications

RIM is ramping up exams for its certifications in a number of server environments such as IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise.

Datacentres

There are some happenings in the datacentre and Novell is involved. Platespin, Novell’s fairly recent acquisition, is listed here:

Novell, in close collaboration with strategic partners, IBM, Intel and Platespin, is driving an approach to data centre computing that will make it easier for organisations to enhance the performance, flexibility and return on investment of the technology upon which they depend for success.

SteelEye has collaborations with Novell [1, 2], but it also turns out to be a competitor.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based SteelEye Technology Inc. has combined its failover clustering and remote replication software in one bundle, creating an all-in-one data protection and recovery package for Linux servers.

[...]

Competitors to the new offering include Novell’s Heartbeat and Distributed Replicated Block Device (DRDB), a free open source download. DRDB, however, does not come with support.

Here is the press release from SteelEye and here is some more coverage.

Identity Management

Novell did not have many press releases, but here is the almost-sole exception.

One of the largest independent banks in America, UMB Financial Corp., (UMB) is implementing Novell(R) identity management solutions on SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Real Time to streamline user access and increase data security. A multi-bank holding company headquartered in Kansas City, MO, UMB has 3,500 employees and offers complete banking, asset management, health spending solutions and related financial services to both individual and business customers nationwide. With Novell, UMB has streamlined user access, reduced information technology (IT) administration time and improved its ability to comply with regulatory requirements.

Novell is also listed here.

Parity provides free online identity management

[...]

In June the Information Card Foundation (ICF) was created with the stated goal of increasing awareness of the use of electronic ID cards on the Internet, and encouraging interoperability in business around new standards. Member companies include Equifax, Google, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, and PayPal, plus nine leaders in the technology community.

People

Ron Hovsepian made a public appearance in Utah, despite being based on the Boston area.

Utah possesses strong resources that will be essential to the next era of high-tech industry growth, says Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian. As leader of a global company with more than 4,700 employees worldwide, Hovsepian noted that Utah’s strengths are critical to the next phase of high technology growth not only for Novell and for the Utah economy, but for the high-tech developments that are affecting the world overall. Hovsepian shared his remarks with leading Utah CEOs at the Utah Technology Council (UTC) Open Forum Discussion at Ballard Spahr’s Utah headquarters in Salt Lake City recently.

There is some more coverage of this.

Utah possesses strong resources that will be essential to the next era of high-tech industry growth, says Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian.

As leader of a global company with more than 4,700 employees worldwide, Hovsepian noted that Utah’s strengths are critical to the next phase of high technology growth not only for Novell and for the Utah economy, but for the high-tech developments that are affecting the world overall.

Here is a new absence of a key person at Novell Australia.

CA Australia is looking for a replacement after the departure of Tony Armfield, while the top job at Novell is still open after Rob Mills left in the second quarter this year.

Another former Noveller makes his next move.

Christiansen also held senior marketing positions at Intel, ServGate, Novell and Firefox.

There is a company called Firefox??? Didn’t Mozilla try to escape registered trademarks such as Phoenix (like the BIOS) and Firebird (like the database) before settling with “Firefox”? Glyn Moosy recently advised Mozilla, which no longer maintains Thunderbird, to rename/rebrand itself “Firefox”.

Partners/Channel

Novell’s work on its channel is making further progress after the latest appointment of a chief.

NOVELL UK has bolstered its partner network in the UK by signing agreements with Centiq, Kavanagh, Repton, Insight, Bytes Technology Group, Everett, CMS, Kelway, Morse and Syan (ACS) in the last quarter.

Parallels Summit 2009 has Novell as a sponsor.

Sponsors for last year’s Summit represented many of the world’s leading technology companies – including Microsoft, AMD, Intel, Novell and IBM.

There also this single new video of Novell BrainShare 2008, where Novell partners meet.

We covered BrainShare 2008 developments in:

Utah

You learn something new every day: a former Novell employee was involved in this horrific incident that returns to the news.

Washington state authorities arrested Long and the child’s biological father Jon Pomeroy for child abuse.

Authorities say the girl who is now 15 years old was malnourished weighing 48 pounds when she was taken away by authorities.

Long also lived in Orem and worked at Novell before marrying Pomeroy.

It’s truly atrocious and reminiscent of a recent story from Germany (the Fritzl case). Each large company has its rotten apple (or two). There are other Novell embarrassments that re-emerged and returned from the distant past. █

Share this post: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.