05.18.09
Novell News Summary – Part III: Very Quiet Week for Novell
Summary: The remainder of Novell’s news (from the past week), most of which minor
Finance
STARTING with the financial news today, Novell was mentioned as just one among many stocks in the news, but nothing particularly special. Via Jupitermedia:
The news was good for modest gains in SAP and rival Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), and a host of big-cap tech stocks fared even better. Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC), Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL), Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), AMD (NYSE: AMD) and Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) gained 2% or more on the day.
The deal with Intel (Moblin) had some impact:
The software manufacturer announced a deal with Intel last week and bounced back from Friday’s losses as it increased 5.9%. NOVL ended the session at $4.22 up 29 cents.
Networking
Novell’s older products made it into some articles, but not much overall. Here is eDirectory appearing in a press release:
Optimal IdM, LLC, a premier Microsoft ISV and Identity & Access (IDA) partner, today announced the release of a Novell eDirectory adapter for its Virtual Identity ServerTM (VIS). Paired with Optimal IdM’s Virtual Identity Server, the industry’s only .NET Virtual Directory, the eDirectory adapter enables organizations to rapidly deploy applications to users
In a separate press release (also here), OES gets a mention along with Microsoft.
The new rapid-recovery appliance uses the new Unitrends Release 4.1 data protection software (see related announcement dated today) for support of up to 40 operating systems now including the Windows Server 2008 family and the Novell OES family of products. Microsoft Hyper-V and Xen virtualization platforms are also supported.
More on the same subject:
The Unitrends Release 4.1 is now compatible with 40 operating systems including Windows Server 2008 and Novell’s OES products.
Harsh words for Novell right here in the very same Web site.
However, the trade off does seem worth it. The old Novell software was terribly slow and outdated, and the switch over not only brings speed along with it, it also brings many benefits and applications along as well.
Lastly, as a general rule of thumb, when you update anything computer related, you should backup your contact list and any e-mails that are saved on the Novell server to a thumb drive or your computer. Because the change is coming and it is not known what will happen to students’ contact information and e-mails when the change takes place.
Last but not least, a quick mention in Geek.com:
The Amigas were connected via a Novell network and sent data to a 12 gigabyte 486 PC file server. They later upgraded to Pentium and Alpha-based systems.
None of this is major.
Virtualisation
ZDNet offered some weekly attention to Novell’s new PlateSpin Recon.
Novell’s PlateSpin offerings are very powerful tools that could be of great help to organizations who are on their way to a more virtualized environment. The products broadly support all of the major and most of the less common hypervisors. That being said, I never have had a Kusnetzky Group client ask about either Novell’s virtualization technology in general or PlateSpin’s products in specific. I have brought these products into the conversation on more than one ocassion when I thought the capabilities of the products closely matched the requirements of these clients.
There was nothing else of much relevance, but here are a couple of other articles that mention Novell and virtualisation:
i. A more global Fujitsu adds a cube
# VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Xen (Citrix, Red Hat, Novell): Fujitsu relies on the standard x86 hypervisors to create a virtual server pool from the physical server blades in the BX900 chassis.
ii. Microsoft to offer more goodies in free Hyper-V Server update
Microsoft will also now fully support applications running inside VMs from partners such as Novell Inc., Red Hat Inc. and Citrix Systems Inc. “If you have a Red Hat issue, we will attempt to solve it and then escalate it with Red Hat if we can’t,” he said.
Novell wrote about GroupWise in its PR blog:
In fact, this recently published Osterman Research report demonstrates that Novell GroupWise offers a lower cost of ownership compared to Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, due primarily to small investments required by IT staff and less downtime – making GroupWise good for the business and for the bottom line.
A little more about Groupwise can be found in this press release from MessageSolution.
MessageSolution’s SaaS email archiving solution supports all major email servers, including Microsoft Exchange Server, IBM Lotus Domino Server, Novell GroupWise Server, Scalix, Kerio, Zimbra, Imail, Qmail, MDaemon, and more. MessageSolution’s SaaS edition is designed to be installed on both Linux and Windows operating system platforms, giving email hosting companies more options for supporting a variety of enterprises and for optimizing operations costs.
More coverage of this right here.
MessageSolution archiving software’s support for all enterprise email servers, including Microsoft Exchange, IBM Notes Domino, Novell GroupWise and major Linux/UNIX-based email servers, makes MessageSolution a top choice for organizations of all sizes and industries on all server platforms. MessageSolution employs policy-based archiving or archiving in real time to capture data before fully indexing all contents and metadata for comprehensive searching of enterprise archives and expedited restoration of archived items.
Novell’s NetMail is also being abandoned.
For many years, MATC students have utilized Novell’s NetMail software to send and receive e-mail. In an effort to give students a fast, simple and reliable e-mail option, MATC will introduce students to a new e-mail service from Google in the fall semester. Faculty and staff will continue to use Novell’s GroupWise software while current students transition to the new e-mail throughout the fall semester.
The new student e-mail service, Gmail, is a robust, effortless and secure system that has received high praise since its release five years ago. Gmail is more user-friendly and modern than the current Novell NetMail system and provides important features such as e-mail formatting, Spam filters and enhanced mailbox organization.
With Novell no longer supporting their NetMail software due to business acquisitions, MATC needed to find a reliable, cost-effective e-mail solution for the long-term.
High-Performance Software
Novell did have one thing to brag about (it was a quiet week all in all): dynaTrace
Novell Uses dynaTrace To Build High-Performance Software Faster
Enterprise software leader Novell is using dynaTrace software’s continuous application performance management solution to diagnose and resolve software performance issues faster then ever before. Using dynaTrace’s Test Center Edition, Novell’s QA organization is now able to rapidly isolate bottlenecks and arm developers with the PurePath root cause diagnostic information they need to fix problems quickly.
CIOL, as usual, just copied the press release and pretended it was an original article by changing some words.
Enterprise software leader Novell is using dynaTrace software’s continuous application performance management solution to diagnose and resolve software performance issues faster then ever before.
Using dynaTrace’s Test Center Edition, Novell’s QA organization is now able to rapidly isolate bottlenecks and arm developers with the PurePath root cause diagnostic information they need to fix problems quickly.
Identity and Management
Microsoft’s exploration of the identity space got Novell mentioned (same here)
Microsoft has added a number of new features around Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 specification, including SAML interoperability with identity software from CA, Novell, SAP and Sun.
CNET wrote about it too and so did the SD Times.
The second beta of “Geneva,” Microsoft’s principal identity management solution for on-premises and cloud applications, interoperates with identity solutions from CA, Novell, SAP and Sun.
New talk from Marina Walser has just landed on YouTube.
Here is part 2 and here is part 3.
Security
Novell is said to have won a CODiE prize (also here for its work on security and asset management.
Novell today announced that ZENworks(R) Asset Management and ZENworks Endpoint Security Management have won 2009 CODiE Awards, an annual program of the Software Industry and Information Association (SIIA) that recognizes achievement and vision in the software industry. Both part of ZENworks Endpoint Management Solutions from Novell, the two products took top positions in the “Best Asset Management Solution” and “Best Security Solution” categories respectively. These awards represent the quality and innovation of the ZENworks family of products which are currently deployed by more than 35,000 customers worldwide and on more than 45 million managed devices.
Sentinel was mentioned very briefly in IDG too.
Distributed intrusion-prevention and firewall sensors send real-time data to be analyzed by what the Navy calls its Prometheus system, which includes the Novell Sentinel security event management system and SAS data management tools.
Partners
Nothing particularly important here except this perhaps:
Founded in 2004, Aveksa has recruited five European VARs - including UK outfit Brookcourt Solutions - since it opened an EMEA office last June. But it currently relies on an OEM relationship with software vendor Novell as its main channel to market.
International
There is a fair deal of coverage in the English-speaking press about Novell in South Africa and here is one such new article which quotes Novell’s new head in the country.
Beetar said: “We have a very strong set of channel partners and now we need to increase the competition because I need more feet on the street. There is no lack of opportunities for us — our identity and security management products are unbelievably relevant today.”
Here is Novell mentioned in Romania.
According to the event’s organizers, ETA2U, market leader in supplying IT products and services in central and Western Romania, the list of participants includes names like Cisco, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, Netapp, Novell, Oracle, Sun and Vmware.
None of the above is significant, but it may help our research in the future. █
