01.31.10
Novell News Summary – Part III: File Management Suite
Summary: Two weeks of proprietary software news from Novell
ANOTHER IDLE fortnight passes by and Novell is said to be facing more threats from Google’s expansion.
To be fair, Wave is still at an unstable, preview stage, but Google has seemed satisfied thus far just hoping the platform will evolve naturally as a tool for enterprises once companies like Novell and Salesforce.com have a chance to game around with it.
Well, Novell is already creating Pulse, which it announced just over two months ago [1, 2]. It will apparently be proprietary, unlike Wave. Novell has almost nothing with which to stop Google from eating Groupwise share. Novell’s PR Director was caught spreading unnecessary fear about SaaS (anti-Google) last week and Novell uses some analysts to do so too (along with the CEO).
Aging products like ZENworks withstanding, some things just have their shelf life expire, a bit like Windows (Vista 7 is just more of the same). Some products beg Novell to just let go.
Netware
Moving on (or back in time) to Netware, here is an unusual new deployment:
Upstate New York School District Replaces Unreliable DLT Tape-Based Solution with Disk-to-Disk Backup Appliance for Novell NetWare, GroupWise and Microsoft Windows Environment
[...]
SCS investigated multiple options but was discouraged by the high pricing for some and the lack of protection for their Novell NetWare platform from others. Maintaining Novell security attributes was an important selection criterion for SCS’ data protection solution so when Holmes found Unitrends he was pleased to learn that it would backup NetWare including trustee assignments, access control lists and other advanced options. Unitrends’ BareMetal backup and recovery features was also a significant advantage for SCS, as was Unitrends’ advanced protection for Novell eDiscovery and GroupWise.
“Tech Dinosaurs of Years Past” is the headline of this article which mentions Novell’s Netware:
I cut my IT teeth in the ‘90s on Novell NetWare 3.12, the bindery, and IPX. While Novell may have moved more quickly to LDAP than some others with successive versions, it was Microsoft that quickly supplanted NetWare with Active Directory and built-in IP support.
Finance
Nothing too interesting has happened with Novell’s shares. Isolated coverage includes:
• SmarTrend Detects Continued Buying Pressure in Shares of Novell (NOVL
SmarTrend identified an Uptrend for Novell (NASDAQ:NOVL) on January 06, 2010 at $4.53. In approximately 2 weeks, Novell has returned 5.3% as of today’s recent price of $4.77.
• Smartrend Detects Continued Buying Pressure In Shares Of Novell (Novl
• Novell Inc. (NOVL) Corporate Event Announcement Notice
• Owners Research Group Announces Initiation of Investor Consensus Study for Novell, Inc. (NOVL)
Owners Research Group (ORG) today initiated research coverage of Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ: NOVL). ORG has invited the shareholders of Novell to voice their opinions and priorities on strategic issues impacting the company.
• Options Alert for Novell (NYSE:NOVL)
Virtualisation
ZDNet has published the article “Novell: Virtualization not for all servers”
Here are some of the things Novell is saying:
Not all servers can–or should–be virtualized, says Novell cloud computing CTO, Moiz Kohari, who urges cloud service providers to focus on making their heterogenous setups work as one.
In an interview with ZDNet Asia, Kohari said virtualization has yet to overcome I/O (input/output) latency issues at the hypervisor level, as compared to provisioned servers. As a result, virtualization is not the choice in cases where service providers and businesses need to ensure as little latency as possible, for example, in a stock exchange environment, he explained.
Novell was also mentioned (but hardly) in this virtualisation survey (ZDNet).
An announcement that was already mentioned in the last Novell News Summary appears in some more Web sites right now. Among them:
• Transend Integrates With IBM to Launch Email Migration Solution
Transend Corp., a provider of email migration and conversion solutions, announced Transend Migrator for IBM Lotus Foundations, a special edition of Transend’s email conversion utility.
• Transend Delivers E-Mail Migration for Lotus Foundation
Transend Migrator for IBM Lotus Foundations allows users to move their e-mail messages, address books, calendars, tasks, and archives from any e-mail system to Lotus Foundation. Users can move the data mailbox-by-mailbox or migrate mailboxes in bulk from a command line batch processor. The software also includes a GUI, and batch templates for competing products, like Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise.
Someone has uploaded this video which shows how to ditch Groupwise for Microsoft (wrong route).
More Groupwise coverage can be found in a variety of news pages [1, 2, 3] and this press release from GWAVA, which boasts 1 million page views in the knowledgebase last year. Boycott Novell serves a similar number of pages but per month, nor year.
Identity Management
Novell is mentioned in this IDG report about authentication:
This newsletter was still the “Directory Services” newsletter, and the immanent release of Windows Server 2000, with Active Directory, took up much of the discussion, especially issues around migrating from Windows NT. But Novell’s directory also made some news with a new release of eDirectory (Version 5.1, called “NDS eDirectory”), which featured the new “NetWare Management Portal”, supposedly more secure for remote management of servers. January 2000 also saw the release of Novell Modular Authentication Services (NMAS), the first release of a major authentication product that allowed plug-in modules and featured multiple authentication methods (passwords, biometrics, tokens and so on).
The biggest news this week came after a press release covering a file management “suite” (marketing terms alert!). Ross from Novell wrote about it and the official announcement says:
Novell today announced the release of Novell® File Management Suite, an integrated file storage solution that provisions, moves, optimizes and reports on file storage based on user roles and customized business policies. For the first time, organizations, regardless of operating system or existing storage management solution, can intelligently manage file storage at its source, tying the file to the user for the entire data lifecycle. Providing organizations with a clearer picture of its data, Novell File Management Suite enables an organization to plan for and deploy an efficient and cost-effective storage infrastructure as well as execute on compliance and governance requirements.
This press release was rewritten by CBR, which adds nothing new (just parroting of the marketing/PR stuff).
Novell has rolled out a new File Management Suite that provisions, moves, optimises and reports on file storage based on user roles and customised business policies.
The company said that the new suite enables organisations to manage file storage at its source, tying the file to the user for the entire data lifecycle. It helps them to plan for and deploy a storage infrastructure and execute on compliance and governance requirements.
Security
Processor.com seeks a lot of comments from Novell staff and this new article is no exception:
The first step to preventing data leaks is to simplify and centralize the control and management of your data end points, says David Ferre, senior product manager of endpoint security at Novell (www.novell.com). Ferre suggests a policy-based approach to systematically prevent data leaks before they can take place, stressing three key areas: removable storage devices, wireless security, and data encryption.
Novell fixed some flaws in SUSE Linux and also on the proprietary side [1, 2]. The following new video shows how Novell may be affected by a serious hack.
There seems to be something in the stack which can take the blame for giving improper permissions. There are some more innocent videos that were uploaded last week.
People
Schmidt’s roots/past in Novell (as CEO) still make the competition between Google and Novell rather odd. But here is another angle:
- Its relationship with Microsoft is very bad, because Google actively opposed its acquisition of Yahoo and other deals. Mr Schmidt is behind that opposition, he spent many years fighting with Microsoft when he was head of Novell. That strategy didn’t work then and it isn’t working now.
Other cases of (former) Novell staff on the move:
• Polycom Revamps Partner Program To Challenge Cisco-Tandberg
Polycom has been busy building out its internal channel ranks, and Capuzzo — who held sales and channel roles at IPC, Avaya, Symbol,Ingram Micro (NYSE: IM), HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Novell (NSDQ:NOVL) in the past — is among several channel veterans to have joined Polycom in the past eight months.
• Virtual Bridges Solidifies Role as Major VDI Vendor
Tom is the former EVP at Novell and Vice
President Software Group Sales Europe at IBM; Srini Gurrapu, VP of Product Management, formerly of RingCube Technologies, Moka5, Juniper and Microsoft; Dr. James Clark, VP, Business Development, Asia Pacific; Dr. Clark was formerly chairman of DASCOM and President of ATT Unix Systems Labs, Asia Pacific, and Brad Fidler, VP of Sales, former Director of Sales at BuildForge.
• Express Digital Branding” for Small and Medium Sized Businesses
Jocelyne Attal, Founder of JAGENCY, has more than 20 years of marketing experience and a record of growing revenues at IBM, Novell, and Gateway.
• Republican announces bid for Johnson’s U.S. House seat
An Atlanta businesswoman is the latest to join the race to represent Georgia’s fourth congressional district.
Liz Carter is the only Republican running against U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson.
[...]
This is Carter’s first time running for office.
Carter, 40, has run her own consulting and recruiting company for the past four years. She previously worked for Novell and State Street Corp.
• SCTE Adds to Advanced Network Development Team
From 1995-98, Harris was a Novell network administrator with Rowan University.
Former Novell employee Matt Asay mentions Novell in CNET:
Convenience still pays. It’s why people pay for a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) subscription when they can get the same bits from CentOS–or effectively the same bits from Canonical (Ubuntu) or Novell (Suse). It’s why I buy “Jane Eyre” on my Kindle instead of just downloading a free version.
Partners
Novell examinations can be seen in this article from the East:
Today’s employees must be able to work in different global environments which is why TAR College is giving its students an avenue to soak up the experiences of the world.
[...]
“For example, our information technology students will sit for Microsoft, Novell, Cisco and various other professional examinations during their course of study.”
More on certification where Novell is mentioned:
• Koenig Announces InstallShield Training
• Koenig now offers training on InstallShield
• Koenig now offers training on InstallShield
• Baron – CED Solutions student – January 2010
DemandGen has Novell as a client, it argues:
Some of DemandGen’s clients are Adobe, Conject, Microsoft, Messe Munich, FARO, NetApp, NXP Semiconductors and Novell.
A company called Xepa is also involved with Novell:
Xepa is an ICT Solutions Provider focusing on Infrastructure Solutions based on the Novell, Linux and Microsoft platforms. In addition to Novell and Microsoft partnerships, Xepa is a VMWare Enterprise Partner, GlobalSign Authorised Partner and GWAVA Authorised Partner. Xepa also has partnerships with other hardware and software vendors, including HP, EMC, Juniper, Cyberoam, TrendMicro and Symantec.
Novell was mentioned in many other press releases and a few articles, usually at the bottom [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12].
Other/Videos
Novell plans to have a BrainShare conference in Europe. Novell also sponsors the nasty SYS-CON, arousing some suspicion that it is sponsoring in order to attend and present in its private events.
Here is an old video that has just been filed under YouTube. It’s from Banyan, which the video claims “got killed by Novell and Microsoft.”
Another new addition to YouTube is this talk from Novell, but it’s not in English and it goes a few months back (only uploaded days ago, though).
In summary, nothing too special has happened, but there was one press release of significance (about File Management Suite). █
