01.17.09
Novell News Summary – Part III: Busy Week’s Assortment
THERE IS A LOT to go through, so this post will be quick.
Savio believes that forces in the east might acquire some (or many) western technology companies and there is a reference to this recent survey (more here) which says that Novell may not survive this year.
When I think about India, outsourcers such as Infosys, Wipro, and TCS come to mind. These outsourcers have historically been software-vendor agnostic with the services that they provide. However, as IBM can attest, there is no reason that a services vendor can’t also offer its own brand of software. The trick is to ensure that customers continue to view the outsourcer as software-vendor agnostic. This is actually easier than it sounds. If the software division isn’t given preferential treatment during engagements, then the division is forced to ensure that their products are competitive. If Indian outsourcers don’t want to get into the hardware business, which is likely, at least to begin with, then Red Hat and Novell would make for better targets.
Matt Asay remarks on this too.
Novell and Sun Microsystems make the list, but so do a host of other impressive technology companies, including Symantec, NetApp, VMware, and McAfee. Not bad company to keep.
Symantec
Some promotional Symantec announcement has Novell mentioned.
The new version includes Novell eDirectory client support as well as full management capabilities for non-domain clients.
Novell’s role in this is also explained in:
1. Symantec Looks to Enhance Management with Encryption Product
The product has always been aimed at the needs of Windows users, and is still focused on protecting data on Windows hard drives. However, in Version 7.0, Symantec has added support for clients not managed by Active Directory. The latest release includes support for Novell eDirectory and full management capabilities for non-domain clients.
“A large number of Windows-centric shops don’t yet run [Active Directory],” noted Rich Langston, senior product manager at Symantec. “Active Directory is by far the most common directory service, of course, and managing our encryption software settings via Group Policy has been a very popular feature with many of our customers. However, adding a new option for management via HTTP and Novell E-Directory addresses a couple of common scenarios.”
2. Symantec shores up encryption
Symantec Endpoint Encryption now supports Novell eDirectory and includes disk recovery and other administration tools to make risk management and access rights simple and easy.
NAC
This is a subject that we covered early in the day. Jupitermedia explains the positive side of it.
Novell is expanding its access management solution today with the addition of new federation options, new client support and new functionality that monitors clients to ensure compliance with security policy, similarly to Network Access Control (NAC).
But don’t call it a NAC.
Novell’s new Access Manager 3.1 release comes as the market for access control solution continues to heat up with IBM, CA, Oracle ramping up their own solutions. The new release also borrows from Novell’s partnership with Microsoft, which plays a key role in the interoperability of the two companies’ wares.
Shane wrote about Novell's NAC back in September.
Finance
Novell is mentioned in this very short piece of analysis.
After several small, strategic acquisitions, Long-suffering Novell (NVL) stages an epic comeback as the open source provider of choice across the entire technology stack. Novell emerges as one of the hottest growth
MGI Research has funnily enough named NOVL just “NVL”. This harms credibility.
Virtualisation
IDG’s NetworkWorld has published a series of articles on virtualisation. Novell is an important component within them. Here are the 4 items of relevance:
1. Novell SLES 10.2 Xen offers great promise
Novell’s SLES 10.2 including Xen 3.2 is part of its Linux product line and typically is managed by the company’s ZenWorks products and services. However, Novell refused to supply its Orchestrator management platform with a ZenWorks virtualization management module for this review, stating that Orchestrator is customized for each data center deployment via Novell Consulting Services and, therefore is not an appropriate product to be included in lab-based reviews. Therefore, our assessment of Novell’s offering rides solely on the SLES 10.2 Xen implementation and the tools bundled with it..
2. Citrix XenServer is tops among Xen-based hypervisors
XenServer’s hardware support was second only to that in Novell’s Xen implementation, which has a slight advantage because it runs on any hardware supported by the Novell SLES 10 Linux distribution.
3. Xen-based hypervisors push performance limits
The short answer then was that neither vendor was ready to enter its Xen hypervisor derivative when testing was conducted last summer. However, in the second round of identical testing done late last fall, we tested Citrix XenServer 5.0, Novell’s Xen 3.2 and Virtual Iron 4.4. Two other vendors — Sun and Red Hat — were invited to participate but because of varying timing problems, declined to participate.
4. Citrix, Novell make a valid run at VMware ESX virtualization crown
VMware and Microsoft should be taking the competition in the server virtualization market very seriously because open source Xen-based products have definitely matured into viable enterprise-class hypervisor options.
The Microsoft press briefly mentions Novell in an article about Microsoft’s own offering.
Live Migration is also offered in other products, most notably the open source Xen hypervisor. Xen is the basis for virtualization platforms from a host of companies like Citrix, Virtual Iron, Novell, Sun and others
InformationWeek did the same thing as the Microsoft press.
As for non-Windows environments, Microsoft’s claim that Hyper-V is capable of mixed operating system virtualization is technically accurate, but the latest version of Novell’s SUSE Enterprise is the only flavor of Linux supported across the Hyper-V range.
Microsoft only supports Novell, i.e. GNU/Linux is “OK” as long as Microsoft is paid for software patents.
Novell faces competitive threat from bigger players in the E-mail and collaboration arena. Here’s some familiar evidence of this.
While IBM’s Notes and Microsoft’s Exchange (and Novell’s Groupwise, to a lesser extent) continue to slug it out for domination in the enterprise collaboration market, Google has been gradually creeping up from the small and mid size business (SMB) space to challenge the big boys with its hosted suite of collaboration tools, known as Google Apps.
Novell’s GroupWise is support by this new BlackBerry Curve.
The smartphone can sync with your company’s BlackBerry Enterprise server, with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise, to deliver corporate e-mail in real time.
Security
Not much here, except for a couple of security advisories that relate to SUSE:
1. SUSE Security Announcement – SUSE Security Summary Report (SUSE-SR:2009:001)
Solved Security Vulnerabilities
To avoid flooding mailing lists with SUSE Security Announcements for minor
issues, SUSE Security releases weekly summary reports for the low profile
vulnerability fixes. The SUSE Security Summary Reports do not list or
download URLs like the SUSE Security Announcements that are released for
more severe vulnerabilities.
2. SUSE Security Announcement – Sun Java (SUSE-SA:2009:001)
SUSE Security Announcement
Package: Sun Java
Announcement ID: SUSE-SA:2009:001
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:00:00 +0000
Affected Products: openSUSE 10.3
openSUSE 11.0
openSUSE 11.1
SUSE SLES 9
Novell Linux Desktop 9
Open Enterprise Server
Novell Linux POS 9
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP2
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 1
Channel
It has been over a week since Volker Smid left Novell [1, 2, 3], but the press is still covering this. A blog in IT World Canada (IDG) asks, “What the heck is going on with Novell’s channel?”
You knew something was up when channel chief Pat Bernard left Novell only eight months into the job. It looks like from the outside that Novell did not like the medicine she was prescribing that would make them a true channel-centric company. Something that Novell has publicly stated it wishes to be.
[...]
John Dragoon, Novell’s chief marketing officer will take over the channel chief role. If you ask me this is a mistake. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Dragoon but no man can handle both jobs and do them well. Given the state of the economy I believe that marketing will be key. A person such as Dragoon should devote his entire time to marketing instead of handling both.
The smarter move would be to promote McAuliff who is a channel advocate and let her run with it.
But these rapid fire executive changes can only lead to confusion in the channel, which no company really needs right now given the state of the economy.
There is coverage in many more places, but the emphasis is not necessarily Novell’s crumbling ranks.
Novell has made changes to its executive management team in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and to its partner and channel organisation, reports FinChannel.
Javier Colado, currently VP and GM of partners, will be promoted to the post of president, Novell EMEA, with overall responsibility for sales and business operations in these territories.
Colado will report to Novell president and CEO Ron Hovsepian. He replaces Volker Smid, who has held the post since December 2006, and is leaving to pursue other interests.
I want to thank the person who posted yesterday that Katie McAuliff either left or got turfed from Novell. I hate to say it but I dropped the ball on that one. I pride myself on knowing who is coming and going in this industry. Novell should have informed me on this one because now I can only speculate on her departure. I will make some calls today to inform you on her situation. No matter the situation I still believe McAullif to be an excellent executive and someone that could help any IT organization.
Rival Novell made changes on the other side of the pond, promoting Javier Colado to the position of president of its EMEA operations. Colado, who was previously vice president and general manager in charge of partners in the region, replaces Volker Smid, whom Novell says has left the company to pursue other interests.
Colado is in the midst of launched a new global channel program and will take over his new role running Novell’s EMEA operations as soon as that is done. Colado joined Novell in 2006 and had executive positions at McAfee and Lucent Technologies. As soon as he takes over the EMEA position, Colado’s responsibilities for managing Novell’s channel partner relationships will move over to John Dragoon, Novell’s chief marketing officer.
People
Stafford Masie left Novell in July 2007 and he remains a respected figure in the South African industry, even the press where he is now interviewed as a country manager for Google.
Before joining Google, Masie spent several years working for Novell SA. He was then recruited to the US to run the Rocky Mountain region, where he was based in Utah and Phoenix. After that he was given responsibility for the Latin American region, followed by those of the Middle East and Southern Europe.
“In the past two years my portfolio changed to global mergers, acquisitions and partnerships, and I worked closely with the top executives of Novell,” says Masie. “I also got into the open-source software world and at the first Linux World conference met Page and Sergey Brin of Google, who were new then.”
Novell’s Joe Brockmeier took on Microsoft’s "Talking Points" — the bunch of Microsoft-affiliated/sympathetic bloggers who chant “Linux killer” in order to boost Vista 7 [sic] perceptions and create doubts about GNU/Linux.
Microsoft makes for an unlikely David, and Linux an even unlikelier Goliath — but here we are. A few years ago, Linux was positioned as the “Windows killer.” Now, as Microsoft is ramping up its efforts in the netbook market, Windows 7 is being positioned as the Linux killer. Interesting that Microsoft is being cast as an underdog here, albeit one with about 70% of the netbook market.
Joe (Zonker) also commented on the Qt/KDE situation as of late.
Partners
Novell was mentioned as a partner in this article about Infinite Software.
Roundstone Systems, which is located in Oakland, California, was founded in January 2003 and was one of HP’s fastest growing resellers that year. The company has partnerships with HP, Microsoft, Oracle, Brocade Communications, VMware, and Novell, and has anchored its business on selling HP enterprise and blade servers with systems software.
A remark from a Novell engineer appeared in this piece (press release) about Nortel:
“Nortel’s solution provides the base for unified communications and simplifies our network infrastructure, providing industry-leading functionality and performance combined with excellent throughput, reliability and affordability,” said Allen Frost, network architect, Novell(2).
It was shortly afterwards that Nortel sought bankruptcy protection.
Novell also appears in this press release from Computhink (“About Computhink”):
Computhink provides best-in-class ECM / Document Management solutions for secure information sharing and compliance, targeting small and medium size organizations. Using state-of-the-art technology Computhink solutions operate on a wide range of platforms, including Windows, LINUX and Novell. The ViewWise Product line includes Email Archiving Solutions for Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise. Founded in 1994, Computhink has thousands of worldwide customers in government, financial services, education, healthcare, manufacturing and utility organizations. For more information on Computhink and its products, please visit www.computhink.com.
Autonomy-Novell link is found, based on another press release:
More than 350 companies OEM Autonomy technology, including BEA, Citrix, EDS, HP, Novell, Oracle, Sybase and TIBCO, and the company has over 400 VARs and Systems Integrators. The company has offices worldwide. For more information on Autonomy, please visit http://www.autonomy.com.
Additional press release that passes by Novell:
Using APTARE StorageConsole products, companies like Novell, Calamos Investments, Eprod and York University increase management effectiveness, maximize storage utilization, and reduce costs.
In India, Novell training is offered, based on this press release.
Koenig, with four locations in Delhi, Goa, Shimla and Dehradun, provides CWNP with its first official classroom imprint in India. Koenig was one of only two finalists for the 2008 Microsoft Learning Partner of the Year Award. Koenig is the only Authorized Training Partner in Delhi for Oracle, Novell and now, CWNP certification.
It is also covered here.
Koenig announced today that it will now offer official training for Oracle, Novell, Cisco and CWNP in Delhi.
In fact, Koenig is the only Authorized Training Partner for Oracle, Novell and CWNP in Delhi.
That’s all for this week, thankfully enough. █
