Looking at the past week, there are quite a few noteworthy items. We begin with the Linux/SUSE side of things.

'Corporate' SUSE

Early in the week, Novell released its version of SUSE for point of sales/service, which is an area where Linux is growing fast.

Novell today announced the availability of SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Point of Service, the latest version of Novell's Linux* solution optimized for retail computing environments. SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service allows retailers to customize and manage point of service (POS) systems, reducing their in-store and data center costs while increasing system flexibility and reliability.

A decent review of the Lenovo ThinkPad (T61 in the case) was published by notebookreview.com and it is of course centered around the preinstalled SLED 10.

Overall I think Linux needs to be offered on all notebooks for an operating system option, if for nothing more than giving consumers another alternative to Windows.

Another review was published only moments ago. From the review, which is more fact-based than experience/pet peeve-based:

One big deterrent to installing Linux on laptops has been the difficulty in finding drivers for hardware components, whether they are new, not mainstream, or just not have Linux support. With pre-installed Linux laptops, that is no longer as big a factor, since the assumption is that Lenovo has tested each component to ensure they work, and has drivers available.

Here is a new video of Frank Kohler, Novell's Virtualization Project Manager.

Other Products

The following item is not truly about Novell, but the product has roots in Novell, much like WordPerfect. It is getting replaced.

SVSU has used CardMail since the fall of 2000. CardMail was purchased by SVSU from NetMail, which was owned by Novell at the time. Current problems with the system are due to that the system is not up to today's standards and difficult to maintain.

Many students are unhappy with CardMail's inconsistency.

"As a student and organization leader on campus, it has been very difficult to communicate efficiently," said senior Jandrew Gonzales.

Novell's GroupWise gets potentially Integrated with SugarCRM, courtesy of Omni.

"Strong Novell technology partners like Omni add significant customer value and enhance the ROI of Novell collaboration solutions," said Wendy Steinle, director of Workgroup Solutions marketing for Novell. "Riva CRM Integration serves a long-standing need of GroupWise users by providing access to mission-critical, line-of-business information directly from within the GroupWise client. Riva leverages the proven security, scalability and reliability of GroupWise and extends the value potential with its robust and open API set."

Lastly, Novell's identity management business gets a new client.

Hotel Technology Next Generation Conference -- The Novell-led Bandit(TM) project today announced a solution to help address one of the major business challenges faced by hotel and hospitality enterprises -- how to cost effectively connect disparate systems to streamline administration and comply with regulatory requirements. Using open source, the Bandit project has written a reference implementation based on Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) standards that will bridge various systems and platforms in an enterprise, including legacy systems, with commercially available identity management software.

The more major news comes in the next post which covers acquisitions and Novell's latest financial report. ⬆