Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part III: From SCO to Utah

Novell had no major products to unveil, so it just issued a vague press release about a vision it has.



Novell today announced an integrated vision for the future of the data center and a portfolio of integrated products designed to help customers increase agility while reducing cost, complexity and risk. The Service-Driven Data Center provides solutions to build, manage and measure the next generation data center so IT executives can deliver the business services that end users need through a flexible, automated and cost-effective infrastructure. Only Novell has the unique combination of technology-agnostic, interoperable and easy-to-use solutions that let customers maximize the utilization of their IT assets within a secure and compliant framework whether customers are running a server farm, building an internal cloud, or using an external cloud.


There was no coverage about this in the media, just copies of the press release, e.g. here and here.

Looking elsewhere, we found that the SCO trial moves forward (or almost nowhere).

SCO



SCO does not want to pay Novell and Novell formally replies to this objection.

Novell has responded [PDF] to SCO's Objections to Novell's Bill of Costs, submitted as the prevailing party in SCO v. Novell.

[...]

SCO *didn't* contest, Novell points out, most of the bill of costs, and it didn't contest that each of the depositions for which Novell seeks to recover costs were "reasonably necessary to the litigation of the case", which is the standard.


Here is another subsequent motion from Novell:

Novell has filed its brief in the appeal of SCO v. Novell. It's 87 pages, so I haven't read it yet myself. I'll swing back by after I read it. But the quick look at the index and the closing words indicates Novell is asking the court to affirm the lower court: "For all the above reasons, the district court judgment should be affirmed." That's on page 67 of the filing, which is page 81 of the PDF. Keep that disparity in mind when you look up page numbers in the opening index. For example, the Summary of Argument is page 21 of the filing, but you'll find it on page 35 of the PDF.


Pamela Jones meanwhile unearths some old information about SCO/Caldera.

The 2.4 kernel is exactly what the SCO litigation was supposedly about. We're talking the GPL here, though, so I can't help but ask another natural question. Did SCO carefully provide the source for all the Linux code it distributed, including with Open UNIX 8 (and later Unixware with the LKP)?


There is another article of this type.

ZENWorks/Past Technologies



Novell is still making some changes to ZENworks Configuration Management.

Novell on April 6 announced several enhancements to its solution suite for endpoint management designed to help customers maximize their investments in the ZENworks product line.


Virtualisation



The Var Guy, blinded by his support of Novell, fails to see that Novell's investment in PlateSpin turned out rather badly.

As The VAR Guy watched the PlateSpin demonstrations, Novell’s strategy finally became clear. First, get customers addicted to PlateSpin as a key tool for server consolidation and virtualization efforts that cut data center costs. Second, make sure SUSE Linux is a potential destination platform for the consolidation projects.

Novell’s Business Service Management strategy, in stark contrast, seems to be a work in progress. Yes, BSM helps Novell customers to further improve system up-time. But Novell’s efforts to cross-train SUSE Linux partners on Business Service Management are just starting.


See the comments.

Mail/GroupWise



Another week, another mention of BlackBerry support for GroupWise:

BlackBerry Enterprise Server is designed for organisations that manage their own email servers. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server software tightly integrates with IBM€® Lotus€® Domino€®, Microsoft€® Exchange and Novell€® GroupWise€® and offers advanced security features and IT policy controls to enable secure, push-based wireless access to email and other corporate data.


Novell's GroupWise might play nice with the Palm Pre thanks to this product.

"We look forward to Palm announcing a Synergy SDK to allow CompanionLink to synchronize Outlook, Lotus Notes, ACT! by Sage, Outlook Business Contact Manager, and Novell GroupWise data directly to the Palm Pre. Until that time, our currently available products will support the early adopters of the Palm Pre..."


There are many people in government who still rely on GroupWise.

One of Google's biggest global GMail deals was a $10million project with Telstra and SMS Technology to supply the NSW Education Department with 1.5 million accounts.

[...]

Late last year staff continued to use the Novell GroupWise platform for email.


Here is another big client of GroupWise.

The company has an extensive communications network connecting thousands of professionals with clients and partners. It uses Novell's Groupwise collaboration suite, and has extremely high mail volumes: in the construction side of the business alone over 50 000 e-mails are exchanged every day.

[...]

The Aveng implementation involved integrating Mimecast with the Novell NetWare environment. Mimecast's core infrastructure is based on its own carrier-class technology platform, which in turn is based on open industry standards and with powerful Web-based interfaces. Users see no change to how they access e-mail as messages are passed from the Mimecast servers (which do scanning and archival) to Aveng's GroupWise servers and then on to the clients. Users access the mail archives through the Web console, which provides virtually instant response times on searches.


Will Novell lose even more GroupWise users because of Microsoft?

Fitzpatrick said Microsoft has pushed DAS as his company looks to migrate to Exchange from Novell GroupWise email, but he's holding back. "I don't want to have the hassle with it," he said. "I'm also investigating hosted Exchange for that reason."


This report also shows up right here under a different headline.

Management



IDG mentioned Novell's Managed Objects in this article about BSM.

While the company is credited for coining the term BSM, BMC is not alone in the market. Companies such as Novell (which acquired Managed Objects), ManageEngine and Zyrion also develop BSM software applications.


Joe Panettieri ("Var Guy") mentioned Novell in a similar context.

Generall speaking, I don’t hear much about Novell in the MSP market. But I think BSM software could emerge as a niche solution for larger MSPs that need to manage SLAs.


The following article which covers identity management sought a comment from Novell.

Jay Roxe, director of product marketing at Novell (www.novell.com), agrees that tough times are increasing the likelihood of internal and external threats and suggests using identity management as a possible solution with ROI potential.

“Identity management is an area where IT security pros can demonstrate return on investment while also addressing major security concerns,” says Roxe, who adds that layoffs can be especially problematic. “Having automatic systems in place that can immediately deactivate an employee’s access to valuable information on a company’s systems is important.”

Roxe also recommends consolidating duplicate, often obsolete systems to save operational costs and streamline management processes. He also advises assessing employee role profiles and ensuring that no one individual has too much access. He cites an example of a single employee who can issue purchase orders and approve payments as a potential fraud risk. In these cases, compliance management systems can automatically enforce IT policies that manual processes would have difficulty tracking.


Support



A YouTube account called NovellServices has just uploaded this technical video.



People



David Bradford was mentioned in a lot of places because his company received funding, which is becoming a rare occasion in this economy. As the press release states (also here), Bradford has roots in Novell:

In preparation for Series B funding, industry veteran and respected executive David Bradford has taken the helm. Mr. Bradford brings 30 years of experience to Fusion-io, including 15 years at the networking software giant Novell, Inc. As a senior Novell executive, he helped lead the company from startup status through a series of acquisitions, public offerings and global business development activities to its position as a multi-billion dollar corporation. During his last three years at Novell, he reported directly to the CEO, Eric Schmidt.

"I am delighted to hear that David Bradford has been appointed CEO of Fusion-io," said Dr. Schmidt, now the CEO of Google. "I have great confidence in his ability to lead this innovative company."


This was covered in:

i. Wozniak's Utah startup lands $47.5M, CEO

The three-year-old Salt Lake City company said Tuesday that it has raised $47.5 million in funding and named former Novell executive David Bradford as CEO.


ii. Fusion-io closes $47.5 Mln Series B Funding round; names David Bradford CEO - Update

Regarding Bradford, the company said he brings 30 years of experience to Fusion-io, including 15 years at the networking software giant Novell, Inc.


iii. Fusion-io lands more funding; Names CEO

Enterprise storage company Fusion-io said Tuesday that it has raised $47.5 million in venture capital and named David Bradford, a former Novell executive, as CEO.

[...]

As for the new CEO, Fusion-io moved to add a CEO as it prepped for its latest round of financing. For the last decade, Bradford served on the board of directors of Pervasive Software. Prior to that, Bradford worked as senior vice president and general counsel at Novell for 15 years.


iv. Fusion-io Gets $47.5 Million In Venture Capital

New CEO Bradford is a 30-year veteran of the tech industry, including 15 years at networking company Novell, Fusion-io said. As a senior executive, he led Novell from startup status through a series of acquisitions, public offerings, and global business development. During his last three years at Novell, Bradford reported directly to chief executive Eric Schmidt, who is now CEO of Google.


v. Fusion-io gets funding infusion

In a tribute to Bradford's networking skills and contact book he's tapped Google CEO Eric Schmidt, a previous boss at Novell, where he worked for 15 years, to provide a supportive quote: "I am delighted to hear that David Bradford has been appointed CEO of Fusion-io. I have great confidence in his ability to lead this innovative company."


vi. Fusion-io plans SSD-based ioSAN network drive

The expansion into network storage takes place just as Fusion-io has signed on former Novell executive David Bradford as its CEO. Besides his experience in networking software, Bradford was also instrumental in bringing Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak into the company as a chief scientist to help guide the storage producer's research.


vii. Fusion-io Raises Huge, $47.5M Round

The firm said that it has named a new CEO, David Bradford, as part of the funding. Bradford joins from Novell, where he has spend the last 15 years.


viii. Fusion-io Lands A Big Round Of VC Funding

I just received a press release saying that Fusion-io has just landed a big Series B round of funding: $47.5 million from LightSpeed Venture Partners, and that it named David Bradford, a former senior VP and general counsel at Novell as its new CEO. Dell, New Enterprise Ventures and Sumitomo Ventures also participated in the investment.


ix. Fusion-io lands $47 million to develop flash storage

Fusion-io's new CEO, Bradford, was the senior vice president and general counsel at Novell from 1985 to 2000, and has held a number of posts over the past decade in the legal world and at several Web 2.0 and social networking companies. Bradford currently serves on the board of directors for Pervasive Software, a database management vendor.


x. Wozniak’s storage startup Fusion-io raises $47.5M more

The company’s announcement notes that in Bradford’s last three years at Novell, he reported directly to then-chief executive Eric Schmidt (now CEO of Google). Not that Salt Lake City-based Fusion-io really needs to play a “six degrees of separation” game to find connections to tech superstardom — Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak recently joined as chief scientist.


Joe Weisenthal wrote this article about Eric Schmidt (also in Fortune) and he mentions briefly the Novell era.

This growth has propelled Eric from his prior status as a little-known CEO of a technology also-ran (Novell) to one of the world's most powerful and richest men. He is also now widely regarded as one of the world's most talented chief executives.


Novell lost a couple of vice presidents to Xiocom and this is still mentioned occasionally in the press.

Wireless broadband solution company Xiocom Wireless has appointed Dell executive Steve Erdman as president. Erdman, who has 22 years of experience in technology sales, marketing and global business management, will oversee day-to-day operations and business and market development. He was most recently vice president of channels and alliances at infrastructure software provider Novell.


Utah



It turns out that Novell has invested in a Utah-based company called TriSano. We saw the announcement from the project back in August.

TriSano was developed by the Collaborative Software Initiative, a Portland-based company, with financial backing from Novell. It is open-source software, meaning it was free for the state to acquire and available for anyone to download and change as they see fit.


At Novell's campus there will soon be a workshop for people who game search engines.

The workshop will be held in the Mountainview Conference Room at the Novell Campus, in Provo, Utah, on April 29, 2009, from 8:00-11:00 a.m. Attendees that register by April 17th will receive a free website analysis upon registration. For more information, including registration, please visit http://www.seo.com/registration.


Novell's Utah campus was also mentioned in this article about local public transportation.

UTA discusses new Provo-Orem bus line



[...]

As currently planned, Utah Valley University will serve as the northernmost terminal and the Novell Campus as the southernmost, with Brigham Young University as a major stop in the middle.


That's about all for this week.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Linus Torvalds Blasts Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) for Attempting to 'Protect' Linux
Like it 'protects' women
New Record for GNU/Linux in Australia (at Microsoft's Expense)
Windows is at an all-time low, GNU/Linux... all-time high
Fighting Over Whose Pockets Are Deeper (or Who Borrows More Money)
When processes favour those who are more wealthy (or more willing to go into infinite debt or steal money of other people) those processes match the attributes of lawfare rather than law
Starting a Book With a Flawed Premise or Weak Hypothesis
To me, Schneier is a sort of "RMS of sec"
Microsoft's Mass Layoffs (30,000+ in 2025) Not About "AI", Just Business Failure
"AI" is replacing... the old excuses for mass layoffs
EPO People Power - Part XVI - Berenguer Does Not Speak German, So What Did He Tell German Police That Busted Him?
based in Germany and does not speak the language
Challenges for EPO Insiders to Try to Tackle in 2026
Nothing will get solved as long as the circus that runs this show tries to keep the circus going
 
Once Again, GAFAM Deletes All Your Data, Only Corrects This After Millions of People Lead an Uproar Online ("Richard Stallman Warned Us About This")
No lessons learned, eh?
You Know Your Critics Are Jealous and Have Inferiority Complex When...
One day we'll write about all this in great depth
"But Corruption is Everywhere"
"We'll always have Polio..."
Days Without Slop About "Linux"
It's time to move on
Links 27/12/2025: Canada Post Strike Called Off, Debate About Europeans "Working Over Christmas"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/12/2025: Household Appliances and Flight Fright
Links for the day
Links 27/12/2025: US Cracking Down on Whistleblowers, Expanding Bombardment Campaigns Worldwide
Links for the day
Resuming EPO Coverage Today, Can António Campinos 'Survive' Cocainegate?
We said we'd continue in the weekend
Links 27/12/2025: More Attacks on Media (Meduza Co-founder Sentenced to Prison in Absentia), "What Owning Music Means To Me"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/12/2025: geminiprotocol.net Downtime and Capsular Gemlog Manager
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 26, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, December 26, 2025
Tossing Embarrassing News Under the Christmastime Bus
This isn't just some coincidence; those are conscious choices
Victim-Blaming in Debian
Verhelst previously did blame-shifting when Debian suicide clusters happened
IBM Cuts in Japan, Red Hat is Attached to a Sinking Ship
IBM, which controls Red Hat, is a rapidly shrinking company
Manchester United Dumped Microsoft Because Qualcomm Sort of Did
The Windows PCs were an utter failure
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Supported by Unconventional Digital Bartering Communities
But no strings attached
Geminispace: 5,000 Capsules in 2026
There are 4.8k now
Gemini Links 26/12/2025: Careful What You Eat and "My Secret Santa"
Links for the day
The Indigenous Community Versus Corporate AstroTurt and 'Cancel Culture'
Good people will recognise exactly what's happening here and respond to it tactfully
Richard Stallman: Epstein is a Serial Rapist. Bill Epsteingate: Epstein is a Friend.
Supporting the FSF (or Richard Stallman) is supporting those who asserted Epstein had serially raped women
The Paradox of GAFAM: Saying You Protect Women, Appointing Abusers of Women to Run the Company
older articles
Censored by FreeBSD Core Team Secretary, Reinstated After Talking About it in Public
FreeBSD misfiring a CoC?
Links 26/12/2025: Chatbot Toys Terrorising Children, US Undeclared "War on Terror" Unilaterally Extends to Nigeria During Holidays
Links for the day
Links 26/12/2025: French Postal Services Under Russian Attack, U.S. Cheetos Accuse People Who Obstruct Information Warfare by Russia of "Censorship"
Links for the day
Debian's Daniel Kahn Gillmor is Wrong, Signal is No "Gold Standard" (It's Also Promoted by Proponents of Back Doors)
I'm not too sure why Debian or the ACLU would wish to associate with this
Next Year Will be the Year of Quantum, Just Like 2020, 2015, 2010, 2005 and So On
"Quantum" is the future
The Silent Power of Coercion Over Speech
The important thing is optics
Kazakhstan Doesn't Need GAFAM Datacentres (Spy Hubs)
Suffice to say, as far as we can gather nothing came out from the empty (false) promises of GAFAM's "data centers in Kazakhstan"
So Simple That You Can Touch and Feel It
In light of recent experiences
Christmas Music Project: Back to When Music Was Music
now Canonical (or Ubuntu) says we should make available tens of gigabytes of disk space
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Under Attack by Cross-Network Spam Floods
So far we've been spared (our network has not been targeted at all) [...] Let's hope the spam won't discourage the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who still use IRC
An "AI-Infused" Windows
Microsoft Windows isn't becoming a worthless pile of garbage by accident
Microsoft Laid Off Over 30,000 People This Year, Coders Are "Too Expensive"
Go get some popcorn. Microsoft "slopware" is about to get real!
Critics Have Long Said Microsoft Produces "Slopware", Microsoft Wants to Prove Them Right
Slop instead of code is a step in the right direction?
The Top 8 Innovations of IBM in 2025
What innovations will come out from IBM in 2026?
And as the Year Turns...
The significance of new years isn't based on geology or astronomy or anything like that
Appliances Versus Computers
Replacing a computer inside an object of some kind or inside an appliance (which nowadays includes "modern" cars) isn't simple and isn't cheap
A Dark Side of Europe
They try hard to silence people who speak about these issues
Why People Love Techrights (and Also Loved "Boycott Novell")
I will continue to publish for many decades to come
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 25, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, December 25, 2025
Browsing Techrights With a GUI and 10 Megabytes of RAM Per Tab
Some people say it's not possible in 2025, maybe in part because they depend on very bloated software
A Tribute to Richard Stallman
It's about knowledge and sharing
Links 26/12/2025: Impermanence, Salt and Thermometer, Freetube
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/12/2025: Hibernation and TV Detox
Links for the day
Canonical is Making the Cost of PCs Very High, Due to Unnecessary Ubuntu Bloat
They say the reason for the price surge is LLM hype/frenzy
Canonical's Ubuntu is Bloatware
How did Ubuntu get so fat?
The EPO is a Very Vicious Organisation You Neither Wish to Join Nor Stay in for "Too Long"
Consider what the EPO thinks of its own workers, the staff that actually does real work
2026 Will Hopefully Turn Out to be Slopless
we seem to be starting the post-Christmas period on the right footing
Links 25/12/2025: Mail Carriers in "a Murky Future", Dihydroxyacetone Man’s "Chip Embargo Against China Backfiring Spectacularly"
Links for the day
The Register MS: All I Want For Xmas is Microsoft
they actually put effort into it
How to Win Nobel Prize for Peace
Do you get to Heaven (or peace platitudes) by sleeping with 72 virgins?
The Right to Repair (Especially When Products Are So Poorly Made)
Many electrical appliances fail often/quick and are nearly impossible to repair
Links 25/12/2025: Ample Cover-up Found in Jeffrey Epstein Files; ChatGPT Causes Psychosis, Not a Good Use Case
Links for the day
Giving Money to Free Software
In life, people must make sacrifices to do what's right and just
The Register MS: Don't Use Linux
That really says a lot about The Register MS
EPO People Power - Part XV - EPO Cocainegate to Resume This Weekend
The next installment (number 16) will probably come out this weekend
Microsoft: XBox is Going "Online", "Cloud"...
XBox as a console is pretty much dead
The Year of the Bubble
We hope that in 2026 the marketing liars will find some new buzzwords to latch onto and quit calling everything "AI"
Mozilla Firefox is a GAFAM Browser With Slop, Move to a Free Software Web Browser
on mobile the options would be more limited
libera.chat Was Under Attack Last Night
Several months from now libera.chat turns 5
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Raises Over $300,000 Before Christmas
the FSF made it past $300,000
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, December 24, 2025