Summary: A bundle of Novell news emphasising the company's Fog Computing ('cloud') moves, former Novell staff, and space sharing (amid the company's shrinkage and approaching end)

THIS post accumulates one week of Novell news, excluding the imminent sale of the company. Earlier this month Novell or some surrogate account threw some "success stories" at YouTube [1, 2]. It's not entirely clear why Novell should even bother marketing itself at this stage.

Moving on to SUSE (probably to become VMware's property soon), SUSE received a special mention in the following press release some days ago:

Zend Server Supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

[..]

Zend Technologies Updates Zend Server PHP Web Application Server and Zend Server Cluster Manager

Another item says that "Novell Announces New SUSE Linux Certification Programmes" (probably old news reposted) and there is some news about Packman in SLE*:

The Packman software archive is now offering a multimedia software package for SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 (SP1). As well as a range of media players, including VLC and MPlayer, it includes a number of codecs for proprietary formats. These include a Windows Media codec package and several GStreamer plug-ins which can be used by applications such as Totem, Banshee and Rhythmbox.

There is little about OpenSUSE except some security alerts [1, 2]. As a takeover by VMware seems highly likely, Novell continues to promote its proprietary Fog Computing agenda with Cloud Manager, which received belated coverage from [1, 2, 3]. There's a quiet new release of another proprietary software product from Novell.

"Swicon360 takes HCM Spectrum in the Cloud service online" says this new press release about an adoption by a site which "represents a key step in an industry-leading initiative involving the joint expertise of Swicon360, SAP, Vodacom Business and Novell."

Novell is increasingly moving in the direction of Fog Computing, as we have stressed and demonstrated for months. The article "Cloud Computing Investors Need to Consider Architecture" says

BasisOne is using Novell identity and security solutions for its platform that deploys SAP ERP solutions as a service using Vodacom (News - Alert) Business's private cloud, TMCnet reported. Novell’s solution enables BasisOne to extend an enterprise organization's security policies onto the applications that are running on virtual servers at Vodacom Business's state-of-the-art data center.

Novell has not bought a single company in a long time, but memories are brought back about one company which sold identity management to Novell a long time ago:

"It's a great asset, a market-leading company," says Jon Oltsik, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. He notes ArcSight's main competitors today include RSA with its enVision product, as well as vendors Q1 Labs, LogLogic and LogRhythm. Oltsik admits he was a bit surprised to see HP going out to snag ArcSight since HP has not built up a large security product portfolio and has at times divested products, such as its identity management suite, which it sold to Novell.

Elsewhere in the news we found Novell partners but no key announcements of any kind. Here is Novell plugging itself into an IDG report:

Mary Jo Swenson, a manager with Novell Training Services, says her company "looks for someone who knows the technology and can present well." To ensure a trainer meets those criteria, Novell wants him to be a Certified Novell Instructor, or better yet, an Advanced Certified Novell Instructor with significant hands-on product experience. The instructor must hold the certification for the course he is teaching, and must stay current on Novell product knowledge. He can lose his status as a trainer if he doesn't stay current on Novell products. Swenson says the trainer also should hold the Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+) certification, which validates that the person can perform classroom management duties and handle the "teaching" portion of being a trainer.

Former staff of Novell gets mentioned here:

Microfueler was founded in 2008, and has 25 employees. It’s based in Paso Robles, Calif., and is founded by Tom Quinn, who invented and holds the patent for the motion-game controller used by the Nintendo Wii. Its management also includes Bruce Padula, former VP of sales at Novell.

The Novell Technology Center in Provo turns out to be sharing room/space/place with other companies (maybe due to Novell shrinking over time). From this week's news we have:

VMT (Vernier Moon Torque) Technologies, a development and licensing company headquartered at the Novell Technology Center in Provo, Utah, is developing a positively engaged, metal-to-metal infinitely variable transmission. The Universal Transmission, which uses an engaged drive chain rather than a friction belt, will be able to increase fuel efficiency by up to 30% or more while generating high torque performance, according to the company.

More space sharing with Broadcom got reported this week: "They will join other market leading companies including Novell, GMAC, and Honeywell, already based at the business park."

Another last tidbit:

The heart of the laboratory is a 225-gigabyte database of environmental and agricultural project records running on six HP servers and two Novell servers storing the data and running the software being tested.

Novell's sale in two parts can prove rather disruptive to existing Novell customers such as this one. It sure has been a huge distraction. ⬆