Summary: Roundup of Novell news from the past 7 days

IT has been another quiet week for Novell (also due to Labor [sic] Day), so this post might be worth skipping.

SCO

Groklaw has this new post with an AutoZone chart. Jones writes:

SCO hasn't changed at all. It hasn't backed off at all. The complaint, however, has changed, and the changes are to cover its back because the Utah District Court ruled that Novell didn't transfer copyrights to Santa Cruz in 1995. At least that is how it strikes me. So it has added two copyrights to its list of registered copyrights, UNIX System V: release 4.2MP (the version that was highlighted in SCO v. Novell) and SCO OpenServer: release 5.0.5. That's because SCO now alleges copyright infringement but also a contract claim related to OpenServer. The other thing that has changed since SCO filed this amended complaint is that SCO management has been replaced by the Chapter 11 trustee, and so we don't know yet if this case will even go forward now. It's up to him, not former management. However, you can see what they *would* have done, if it had been up to them, namely continue to sue Linux end users, not just AutoZone, and this was intended to be the template, I gather. They wanted this to be an object lesson: pay SCO for using Linux. Like I said, they haven't changed at all.

The actual big news comes from Novell, which wants UNIX back (or rather, it wants to clarify that it indeed owns it).

Novell Files for Rehearing En Banc!

[...]

En banc means not just three judges, but all the appeals court judges. The filing is 78 pages, and we can read it together.

This may take a while.

Finance

We wrote a lot about Novell's financial results for the last quarter, but there are still some reports we have not covered or cited, such as this one or this newer one. Novell's revenue continues to drop sharply, so downsizing may be needed.

Netware/Novell Directory Services

Users of Snot [sic] Leopard who depend on Netware are sort of stuck.

Snow Leopard - Novell (not for a while :-( ) -- Novell networks are not yet compatible with Snow Leopard, leading to suggestions for workarounds. (3 messages)

The full thread is here:

I discovered, to my chagrin, that our Novell network is NOT compatible with Snow Leopard - see <http://www.novell.com/products/openenterpriseserver/snowleopard.html>. Of course, we were told that IT would upgrade to Snow Leopard in December -- now I know why. My workaround is to use RemoteDesktop to go to my Leopard computer and access the network. What I don't understand is what changed in Snow Leopard that fowled Novell access?

Here is some IPX/SPX nostalgia from IDG:

When the Dreamcast debuted in September 1999, it took its cues from the PC. I played Doom on an IPX/SPX connection (an old Novell protocol) in 1994. Quake and Duke Nukem 3D followed on 33.6K and then 56K dial-up speeds in 1996. Remember Quake clans? Huge.

IDG also has this item about Directory Services:

It had taken me well over a year to get Network World to agree to this newsletter (I was already writing one called "Focus on Windows NT") but, as I said in that first one: "With Microsoft ready to launch Active Directory in Windows 2000 and Novell soon to release Version 8 of Novell Directory Services, many vendors are jumping on the directory bandwagon. In this newsletter, we hope to be able to winnow the wheat from the chaff and point you towards the major milestones on the road to the directory-centric network."

Virtualisation

Tech Data turns out to be distributing Platespin. We wrote about Novell's new relationship with Tech Data in [1, 2].

Tech Data also expanded its arrangement with Novell Inc. to include the vendor’s PlateSpin products, which allows companies to extend their use of virtualization in the data center.

HP's Solution Builder has some new virtualisation additions that relate to Novell through support.

At VMworld this week, HP announced innovative management and service solutions that extend the benefits of virtualization beyond servers to the entire infrastructure. The announcement included the HP Solution Builder program, which is being supported by Novell.

Jeff Jaffe uses marketing buzzwords like "Cloud" to promote more or less the same thing and so does Novell's PR department, which speaks about "vCloud". A lot of these things are proprietary and some -- like Platespin -- are arguably Windows-only. Here are some more new details about Platespin:

Once a startup, Platespin was acquired by Novell in March 2008 for $205 million, and Platespin gets good reviews at this engineer's shop for its ability to create a virtual machines from Linux physical servers.

Mail

The impending migration (away from GroupWise) in Los Angeles has gotten the attention of the Microsoft-sponsored blog, which writes about whose money gets spent:

How L.A. would switch to Google Apps, using Microsoft's money

A recent report from Los Angeles' chief technology officer gives lots of details on a proposal to migrate the city to Google Apps -- moving away from Novell Groupwise and, to a lesser extent, Microsoft Office.

A couple of videos have been added to YouTube and therein they promote GroupWise. The first one is about SKyCOM.



Here is the second new video.



GroupWise support was also mentioned in relation to the Apple iPhone, e.g. here:

NotifyLink provides users with wireless email and PIM synchronization combined with a set of mobile device management functionality. In addition, NotifyLink supports a variety of mobile devices in addition to the iPhone as well as a variety of email platforms including Novell's GroupWise, Sun's Java Communications Suite, Oracle's OCS and Beehive Suites, Google's Premiere Apps, Mirapoint's Messaging Server, Alt-N's MDaemon, People Cubes's Meeting Maker and OpenText's First Class. Last August Notify launched its initial NotifyLink support for the iPhone and iPod touch which included wireless synchronization of email and PIM (calendar and personal address book), global address lookup, and remote wipe, the company said.

Novell's campus will be hosting a course for iPhone developers.

Izatt International today announced a new 3-day iPhone Developer Course to be held in Provo, Utah at the Novell Campus. The course will be Thursday-Saturday, October 8-10, 8:30am-5:30pm. An expert iPhone instructor will be covering the new iPhone 3.0 SDK, beginning with the basics plus covering exciting new topics such as the new MapKit and accessing the user’s iTunes library.

Identity Management/Authentication

In another proprietary area of Novell, SecureLogin 7 makes an appearance.

Novell today announced the availability of Novell SecureLogin 7, the latest release of its industry-leading enterprise single sign-on (SSO) solution. Novell(R) SecureLogin 7 drastically reduces the time required to SSO-enable the applications in an organization from weeks to days--allowing customers immediate advantages from improved productivity and operational efficiency.

This does not seem to have been covered by the press, just this press release. There is one exception though:

Novell today launched the latest version of its SecureLogin product, which it claims can reduce the traditional burden associated with integrating single sign-on systems with enterprise packages.

Here is another related article from the same publication:

This has been achieved by enabling the devices' user databases to synchronise directly with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol directories, such as Microsoft's Active Directory and Novell's eDirectory, to ensure that both sets of information are automatically updated.

Security

Novell's iPrint Client has a new flaw, but there seems to be no additional coverage about it. Processor.com has meanwhile quoted a Novell employee on the subject of security.

David Ferre, product manager for endpoint security at Novell (www.novell.com), agrees. “In a recent study, 53% of respondents said that they wouldn’t be able to determine what data was lost if they lost track of a USB device,” he says. “If companies don’t encrypt, that mobility that is so prized can become a threat to the health of the enterprise.”

People

The head of Managed Objects left Novell quite recently and there is finally formal coverage about it.

Giunta was CEO of McLean-based Managed Objects since 1999. Giunta built Managed Objects from a pre-revenue startup 10 years ago to its $50 million sale to Novell last year, she said.

Giunta replaces USinternetworking Inc. veteran Michael Harper at the helm of the Glenwood, Md. company in Howard County.

Here is another new page about Managed Objects.

A CRM excellence award gets granted to Callidus Software, whose connection to Novell we covered in [1, 2, 3].

Technology Marketing Corporation's (TMC), www.tmcnet.com, Customer Interaction Solutions(R) magazine (www.cismag.com) awarded Callidus Software for the deployment of TrueComp(R) Manager software solution at Novell Inc. Callidus Software was recognized for its efforts and success in delivering measurable business improvements to Novell.

Another Novell member of staff is spotted in the news (IDG):

This 31-year-old software engineer has been working with and coaching remote teams at companies like JP Morgan, 3M, Nortel and Hewlett-Packard since 2001. He's currently a consulting engineer working for Novell (remotely from Cambridge, Mass.) and looking for a publisher for his book, The One Minute Commute. (Learn more at www.zackgrossbart.com.)

Partners

Almost nothing here, except for a couple of press releases that mention Novell connections. As we warned at the start, there's nothing fascinating going on at Novell these days. ⬆