Summary: A look at Novell's many activities in the past week

HERE is the last part of this week's news roundup about Novell.

Finance

Nothing of significant interest was found except this:

Analyst Choice has combined some of the best financial and technical minds worldwide to bring you an array of free quality equity research and reporting. Today we have begun in-depth reporting on our website evaluating the current market condition of Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), Novell Inc. (NASDAQ: NOVL), Riverbed Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: RVBD) and Powerwave Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: PWAV).

Secondary Novell

eWeek reminisced the days when Novell's NetWare was a lot more widespread.

Most of eWEEK’s readers though the ages have been PC readers, but, then again, when I first started working here (when the publication was called PC Week, incidentally), our readers were overwhelmingly using Novell NetWare.

Novell has meanwhile released this update for its Windows Novell Client.

Novell today announced key updates to the Novell Client for Windows that enables Novell Open Enterprise Server connectivity.

Regarding Novell certification, we were only able to find new articles that put it in a negative light, namely:

i. 6 ways to ruin your resume

I'm not trying to downplay achievements from over 10 years ago; I was a Novell 3.12 CNE. But how relevant are those skills today? Including them on a résumé gives the impression of trying to fill the application with fluff.

ii. Developers keep cheating on certification exams

Braindumps for Cisco, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle and Sun IT certification exams are available on the Web. Braindumps contain copyrighted content, and discussing tests with other parties violates non-disclosure agreements.

iii. Study: IT skills pay drops slightly overall in Q1

Prosoft Master CIW Administrator pay dropped the most of all certified skills in the first quarter, falling 25%, as did Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer+Internet. Microsoft Certified IT professional (-20%), Novell/Certified Internet Professional (-20%) and Novell Certified Instructor (-16.7%) rounded out the top five highest drops.

All that said, Novell is harping about this new review (ish) of ZENworks and some press release speaks about Novell eDirectory.

Policies can be deployed through Microsoft Active Directory and Novell eDirectory.

Novell's business which relies on Windows continues to be lost to Microsoft. It shows what a great partner Microsoft must be.

The university has also started a suite of desktop architecture projects to be completed over a period of 18 months which involved implementing Symantec's Altiris and planning the move from Novell desktop services to Active Directory and Windows Server 2008. The university currently has licences with both Novell and Microsoft. Migrating to one will mean lower fees and a lower support cost in terms of maintaining two skills sets.

ZDNet Germany has just updated/created this page about Windows software that treats Novell's. It's Stellar Phoenix, which has bombarded Google News with repetition for a long time.

Virtualisation

We've found many articles that mention virtualisation in one form or another, starting with the words of Citrix:

It is collaboratively built by the industry’s leading IT vendors, led by Citrix and including Intel, AMD, IBM, HP, Novell, Red Hat, Sun, VA Linux and many others.

IDG had a go at a test drive where it put SLES on Windows, using Microsoft software. That's how Microsoft wants GNU/Linux to behave; it gets paid twice (for SLES and Windows).

We wanted to use an ISO image to initially install a guest VM onto Hyper-V. We setup the guest and chose Novell's SLES 10.2 (64-bit) as the operating system to run on the Hyper-V host. We chose the ISO image we had manually added to the library. We didn't want to copy the ISO image so we chose: 'Share image file instead of copying it'. But when we did that we got an inarticulate error message, telling us in a roundabout way that the machine requesting the image did not have proper access rights. Eventually, the problems were solved with a change in file/folder permissions. But it was no mean feat to get the Library function to work.

Here is a report about PlateSpin, which does not seem to be doing much under Novell's wing.

Novell's PlateSpin Workload Management solutions, on the other hand, are based on technology obtained through the company's acquisition of PlateSpin in February of 2008.

In a conference call to announce the buyout, Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian said that PlateSpin's technologies fit into multi-operating system virtualization and physical infrastructures with support not just for Xen, but also for hypervisors from Microsoft and VMware.

Jaffe wrote this rather abstract post about Novell's strategy in the datacentre, which seems to involve a great deal of collaboration with Microsoft (including its partners like Citrix/Xen and companies where it put its people, notably VMware).

For several years Novell has been building a vision of the next generation data center that addresses new customer needs. These needs are to leverage new technologies that reduce cost and complexity, but manage the risk of introducing them. Our Service Driven Data Center (SDDC) provides the cost reduction in a well managed fashion.

The South African press had this article where Novell's word was used to augment coverage of virtualisation.

Virtualisation gives organisations the power to move resources in an instant, but can pose various problems and lead to increased costs if implemented incorrectly.

So says Justin Steinman, VP of solution and product marketing at Novell, who believes following certain steps will allow organisations to successfully deploy virtualisation in a mixed data centre environment.

There was another article from the same publication which prepared the readers for a virtualisation conference. Novell South Africa will be there.

The two-day event will see 17 speakers cover various topics such as workload management and disaster recovery, presented by channel manager of Novell SA, Matthew Lee. He will discuss how to meet the challenges of adhering to current regulations concerning virtualised data, analysing the benefits and drawbacks, and responding to disaster recovery.

Mail

Here is a new press release about software for the iPhone which boasts Groupwise compatibility (mentioned here also).

The Esnatech Telephony Office-LinX platform is already tightly integrated with MS Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, Novell GroupWise, Apple MAC OS, Apple iPhone, Research in Motion Blackberry, Nokia devices, and MS wWindows mMobile devices. The gateway server can be administered directly from an organization's Microsoft Management Console or through Terminal Services over the web. Users can be managed through Active Directory and Group Policy.

Here is another press release that mentioned the role of GroupWise (same here):

When unified messaging was first introduced to the Firm by their IT Director, Jan Durant, AVST’s CallXpress was supplied by Avanquest and integrated with a Mitel€® PBX, Novell’s GroupWise and Citrix.

Some wise guy from TMCNet already rewrote the press release (fake journalism):

Officials at Avanquest say they installed AVST’s (News - Alert) CallXpress solution a decade ago at Lewis Silkin, integrating the platform with a Mitel (News - Alert) PBX at the firm, Novell’s GroupWise and Citrix.

This is what TMCNet does most of the time. Their output is just the 'massaged' output of actual companies.

Security

Novell Teaming has addressed known vulnerabilities, but new ones may be showing up.

SEC Consult, a security consulting service, has advised of three vulnerabilities in Teaming, Novell's collaboration and conferencing software.

Over at CNET, Novell was mentioned as an example where identity management meets security.

People

There are all sorts of interesting moves this week.

Starting with this press release about Eric Schmidt, it turns out that he visited CMU a short while ago.

Prior to joining Google, Schmidt was chairman and CEO of Novell, where he led the strategic planning, management and technology development for the global software corporation. Before leading Novell, he was chief technology officer and corporate executive officer at Sun Microsystems Inc., where he led the development of Java, Sun's platform-independent programming technology, and defined Sun's Internet software strategy.

Her spoke at the CMU graduation. The Novell connection is well known to many:

Before joining the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant in 2001, Schmidt was chairman and CEO of software company Novell. He also worked as CTO at Sun Microsystems Inc. and worked at Bell Laboratories.

Some days ago we wrote about Novell's board changes and now arrive some details from nearby (Novell's headquarters in Boston).

Software developer Novell Inc. said Friday it appointed two new members to its board of directors.

Other people to watch include Bill D'Amico, who becomes a Vice President at Learn.com. He has Novell history.

D'Amico worked for a number of technology companies including Pathlore Software, Novell Software Corporation, and Computer Associates.

The same goes for Patrick McCarthy, who becomes a Vice President at BroadVision.

He was also Senior Vice President of worldwide sales for Selectica and held senior management roles with Novell and Autodesk. Mr. McCarthy initially joined BroadVision in 1998 and served four tremendously successful years running the Central United States sales organization. He holds a B.S. degree in computer science from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Ed Ryan has less direct connections with Novell.

His demonstrated achievements span small start-up organizations to billion dollar companies, including Citrix Systems Inc, Novell Inc, and Platform Computing.

In the Utah press we find:

The company was founded by four guys -- besides Cranny, Jim Kilgour, Michael Wright and Peter Boucher --- who left Senforce Technologies after it was bought by Novell.

There is also this from Utah:

This workshop will be taught by Michael Eagar, who has extensive experience as an online entrepreneur and manager for many Internet start-up ventures. Some of the companies that Eagar has been associated with are Novell, Provo Labs, My Princess Pearls, US Family Tree and OrangeSoda. Eagar owns his own company, Utah Labs, which specializes in online business training and consulting.

Partners

Here is new evidence of the CORAID-Novell connection and the SAP-Novell virtualisation connection (not just plain SUSE). There is also this to do with Dolphin Digital Media.

At the heart of Dolphin Digital Media's high-tech security platform are the solutions of its technology partners: Novell Corporation, Stratacache, Rackspace, and 123ID, all integrated through an exclusive worldwide license with Weblock International.

Here is Novell standing shoulder to shoulder with Forrester (which was paid by Microsoft to smear GNU/Linux) and rPath (see background [1, 2, 3]).

We'll be taking on this topic in depth on Thursday, April 30th, with "Tackling the Last Mile of IT Process Automation," a webinar rPath is hosting with Forrester Research, Novell and BlueLock.

Marketing

Novell and its circles have circulated all sorts of videos that they put on YouTube. There's this new one for example and this one which was pushed in by Novell. There are also all sorts of pro-Banshee lyrics in new promotional videos.



Yes, he's promoting Banshee (Mono infection); just put it in there for good measure. Here it is from Novell's PR department too:

Grab your video camera, or your friend’s if you don’t have one, and get ready to answer the question: “What do you do with Linux?” Then channel your inner Tarantino and submit a 1-minute video entry that answers the question in a creative, entertaining or unique way. Luke Skywalker using the force of Linux? Butch Cassidy and the Linux Kid? Or maybe an instructional video on how to use Banshee to play music?

This video was uploaded by a Novell employee, NovellVideo, and the following was uploaded three separate times for some unknown reason (all are identical):

• Novell Commercial 1
• Novell Commercial 2
• Novell Commercial 3

A competition of some sort appears to have produced the following videos which were uploaded some days ago:

• Novell Ad
• extreme training
• REEL BIG Wheel
• Novell
• Novell Power Rangers

For those who wonder why we track this, it's intended to show that Novell is consciously using YouTube as a free-of-charge advertising space.

There are also new GroupWise commercials:

• multitasking with novell
• Novell GroupWise - No Need To Translate

Novell also talks about those videos which it uploads and it attempts to capitalise on the end of Windows XP support. There is nothing wrong with that, but why has Novell pushed this video into YouTube four times for no apparent reason? Novell is notoriously bad at marketing and it appears to be misbehaving on YouTube. ⬆