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Novell Cozies Up to Microsoft SharePoint

"[The partnership with Microsoft is] going very well insofar as we originally agreed to co-operate on three distinct projects and now we’re working on nine projects and there’s a good list of 19 other projects that we plan to co-operate on."

--Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO



HERE IS THE press release announcing this latest development.

Novell today announced a new version of its access management solution. Novell€® Access ManagerTM 3.1 now offers built-in support for WS-federation, a single sign-on feature typically offered in costly, supplementary federated identity products. This makes Novell Access Manager the industry's most full-featured Web access management offering.

Leveraging Novell's groundbreaking technical collaboration with Microsoft, Novell Access Manager 3.1 offers support for WS-Federation, one of the WS-* standard set of interoperable access and authentication standards, allowing organizations to easily and securely share business data in mixed-source IT environments. As a result, Novell Access Manager enables IT security administrators to grant non-Windows directory users, partners or organizations, single sign-on access to Microsoft web-based products such as Microsoft Office SharePoint*.


This was promptly covered by IDG News Service (also in here and slightly modified here).

Novell Monday unveiled support for a federation protocol in its identity software that represents the first fruits of its 18-month-old interoperability lab work with Microsoft as it relates to access management.

Novell released version 3.1 of its Access Manager with support for the WS-Federation protocol that is prominent in Microsoft's Active Directory Federation Services and its forthcoming Geneva identity platform for the cloud.


There's little more information about it here and here.

Novell Releases Access Manager 3.1 with Built-in Support for WS-Federation


 

Earlier this week, Novell released its Access Manager 3.1, which includes an SSL-VPN that provides authentication integration.


From ZDNet (also here):

Novell on Tuesday released a new version of its Access Manager authentication system that allows non-Windows directory users to more easily access Microsoft Web-based products such as Microsoft Office SharePoint.


CRN covered this too:

Novell has updated its access management solution, Novell(R) Access Manager (TM) 3.1, to include a built-in support for Web Services Federation.

Anthony Turco, business leader for identity and security management at Novell APAC told CRN that the single sign-on feature is typically offered in supplementary federated identity products


We'll be hearing more about it later this month in GWAVACon.

Omni (www.omni-ts.com), the GroupWise Integration Company, today announced that it will unveil two new integration options for Novell GroupWise and Microsoft SharePoint at GWAVACon Las Vegas (January 25-27). The first integration option delivers transparent, bi-directional, server-side synchronization of GroupWise and SharePoint appointments, tasks, address books and support issues. End-users can access the data from the application of their choice. The second option is to embed GroupWise WebAccess Web Parts directly into the SharePoint Portal user interface. This integration provides the same functionality for GroupWise WebAccess in SharePoint as is available for Microsoft Outlook/Exchange.


GWAVACon sort of replaces BrainShare, which was called off [1, 2, 3]. NetworkWorld (IDG) does not forget it so quickly.

FUN STUFF: This came too late to include in the fun stuff I told you about before the holidays, but you still could spend a few minutes watching this great video developed for last year’s Novell BrainShare conference.


All in all, here we have another case of Novell enabling Microsoft lock-in.

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