06.28.08
Do-No-Evil Saturday – Part IV: Novell’s Upgrade, Buybacks, PlateSpin, Security, and Identity
This is the last portion of news for today. It’s subdivided into the main developments that came up over the past week.
Upgrade, Buybacks
This may not actually mean much, but Katherine Egbert has upped NOVL, which led to a rise in share value. It may have something to do with Novell’s recent buybacks [1, 2, 3, 4].
The brokerage, which has a price target of $7.50 on the stock, also expects he company might to buy back stock slowly.
Here is another more explicit explanation.
“Novell’s installed base in government and education, and a large maintenance stream seems to make them less susceptible to deteriorating spending,” she writes in a research note. “We believe the shares are cheap, margins are expanding and there might be a new partnership with Microsoft on tap,” involving application virtualization software.
PlateSpin
This is Novell’s recent acquisition. There is some more news about it now because of a new product release (PowerConvert).
PlateSpin was acquired by Novell in March of 2008.
PowerConvert is deployed on Windows Servers (2000/2003) and Clients (2000/XP Pro/2003), with the ability to manage workloads across Windows (NT/2000/XP/2003), Red Hat Linux/Enterprise Linux, SLES (8/9/10), and virtual infrastructure including VMware (Server/ESX Server 2.5+/3), Microsoft Virtual Server (2005/2005 R2), Virtual Iron 3.1 and Citrix XenServer 4.1.
Will Red Hat still be supported (long-term)? Let’s wait and see.
Here is the press release.
PlateSpin ULC, a Novell(R) company, today announced the launch of PlateSpin PowerConvert(R) Version 7.0 with new backup and recovery features and expanded multi-platform support to help enterprises migrate and protect server workloads across heterogeneous physical and virtual IT environments. The first major product release since the company was acquired by Novell in March 2008, PowerConvert 7.0 gives customers a true enterprise-class solution to simplify the management of server workloads in their heterogeneous data centers.l
Some more human-readable text here.
According to the company, PowerConvert 7.0, the first major product release since the company was acquired by Novell in March 2008, gives customers an enterprise-class solution to simplify the management of server workloads in their heterogeneous data centers.
The chief executive, Stephen Pollack, says more:
Stephen Pollack, chief executive at PlateSpin, said: “To build the next-generation data center infrastructure, organizations need enterprise-caliber multi-platform workload portability, robust and scalable workload protection, and reliable policy-based orchestration. [...]
Coverage came also from TMC Net.
PlateSpin officials say this is the first major product release since the company was acquired by Novell in March, and provides an enterprise-class solution.
Security
A new flaw has just been reported for Novell to address.
A vulnerability has been reported in Novell Groupwise, which can be exploited by malicious people to conduct cross-site scripting attacks.
Here is an article about a comparative analysis that involves Novell.
The first VB100 award was given in 1998, and Virus Bulletin carries out several comparatives every year, rotating its platforms between Linux, Windows, Windows servers and Novell Netware.
In this patch management article, Novell was not included for the following reasons:
We spent six months putting five patch management systems to the test. See which one is best for your environment.
[...]
Note that we chose not to review Novell’s ZENworks Patch Management in the course of this Rolling Review because it licenses PatchLink’s product. However, those looking into full endpoint management, or to add patching to an existing ZENworks environment, should feel confident in the patch management that Novell provides.
Identity Management
There is only one major announcement in this area. It’s about the Information Card Foundation (ICF), of which Novell is a member. Many articles were written about it. Here are some of them:
1. Information Card Foundation launched
A group of companies including Equifax, Google, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle and PayPal have created the Information Card Foundation group in order to increase awareness of the use of electronic ID cards on the internet and to encourage interoperability in business around new standards.
2. Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, PayPal, Others Launch New Digital ID Forum
A new nonprofit founded by heavy hitters like Microsoft, Oracle, PayPal, Novell, and Equifax to promote and speed industry-wide adoption of online digital identities has launched today. The Information Card Foundation (ICF) hopes to unite the various industry efforts and vendor products for Internet-based information cards and virtual wallets, its founders say.
3. Microsoft, Paypal and others working on new digital identities system
A consortium of companies — including Microsoft, Novell, Equifax, Oracle, and PayPal — launched a nonprofit organization with the aim of creating new standards for identifying online users. The name chosen for this new group is the Information Card Foundation (ICF).
Here is another angle: Google and Microsoft want to share your ID
ICF also plans to introduce industry branding across member sites to build consumer awareness of the technology, similar to authentication markers provided by vendor VeriSign.
The project with Fujitsu (mentioned previously in [1, 2, 3, 4]) makes a quick comeback too.
The biometric safety features of the current social site were developed in partnership with Fujitsu, Novell and 123ID and are implemented in the login for access to the site.
Miscellany
In this new article that urges ‘co-petitition’, a team-up with IBM and Novell is mentioned. This is interesting because of a similar ‘co-petitition’ which was mentioned a week ago.
WHO: Errol S. Flynn grew up in Sackets Harbor and retired there in 1990 after a career in computer programming and marketing.
[...]
“I worked with and for the president of Novell. He sort of inspired us with creating your own competition. You’ve got to be ‘co-petitive.’ We teamed up with IBM, Novell, Dell and others. Our network card plugged right into the parallel port and allowed you to get online.
IBM, Novell, and Dell are an interesting possibility for so many reasons. Remember that Dell and Lenovo (think IBM) are both selling just Novell Linux in China. █
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