IT HAS been another quiet week and the only press release of significance seems to be this Acresso-Novell deal and accompanying PR (also in MSNBC).

Acresso Software today announced a new, multi-year OEM agreement with Novell to provide a broader AdminStudio application readiness solution set to Novell ZENworks customers. Expanding on the capabilities available under a long-standing agreement with Novell, the complete AdminStudio Standard Edition will now be included in Novell ZENworks Configuration Management, addressing customers' need to streamline customization steps during the preparation of reliable Windows application packages for enterprise deployment. Novell customers using the AdminStudio component of ZENworks have prepared applications for deployment in 85% less time.

SCO

Groklaw keeps studying the history of SysV and Ralph Yarro earns more infamy from TechDirt, but not due to his role at SCO.

A few years ago, Ralph Yarro, the chairman of everybody's favorite tech company, SCO, put forward a plan to ban all internet porn from port 80, the port used by HTTP traffic. He later added that open WiFi should be banned as a means to stop porn.

Mail

The following GroupWise video was pushed into YouTube some days ago.



Novell's latest GroupWise receives support from SageCRM and here is the press release about it.

Omni (omni-ts.com), the GroupWise Integration Company, and Novell Platinum Partner, RDA Enterprises, today announced that they will be working together to introduce a transparent, two-way, server-side integration for SageCRM.com and Novell GroupWise 8.

"Omni's Riva Integration Server brings enterprise-level, server-side integration for Novell GroupWise and key line-of-business applications," said Teruel Carrasco, Director of Global Sales and Channel Strategy for Omni. "Despite these tough economic times, companies continue to invest in strategic line-of-business integration and revenue-enhancement solutions that drive growth, deliver better customer service, and improve workforce productivity. Riva Integration Server satisfies these CxO-level priorities."

Canadians want the native BlackBerry to serve them. It's for the City of Toronto, which uses GroupWise.

The wireless IT staff must also ensure integration and synchronization with the city’s Novell Inc. Groupwise e-mail environment.

Novell support is not a natural fit, but Novell bought PlateSpin along with its Canadian roots. As Wikipedia puts it, "PlateSpin is a subsidiary of Novell headquartered in Toronto, Canada." This remote Novell connection with Toronto plays no role here, though it's just a little interesting.

Toronto wants a BlackBerry specialist

[...]

The wireless IT staff must also ensure integration and synchronization with the city’s Novell Inc. Groupwise e-mail environment, he added.

While one city holds on to Novell, others are ditching Novell for alternatives like Google or even Microsoft in this case.

My shop recently upgraded its email system from Novell GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange.

And Novell made Microsoft a friend?

Identity and Management

Novell has acquired Managed Objects, which was not a terrific idea. Now there is a release of a rebranded BSM.

Novell Inc. has announced a comprehensive suite of business service management (BSM) solution offerings that address customer needs to reduce cost, manage complexity and mitigate risks within the complex IT enterprise.

The new solutions, which will be marketed as Novell Business Service Management (Novell BSM), extending Novell's portfolio by delivering strategic capabilities to effectively manage and measure the performance of physical and virtual IT infrastructure as a set of services delivered to business users.

There is also something about this in Italian.

People

Janet Majane from Novell organises a reunion and advertises it in public. Former Novell manager, Rik Van Bruggen, is making some career moves.

Rik, who has been a part of the Imprivata team for more than three years, most recently served as the company's Central European Territory Manager. During his time in this position, he established programs to dramatically increase the company's presence in Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg and France. Before joining Imprivata, Rik was at Novell, where he was responsible for managing Identity and Access Management solutions in EMEA. Prior to that, he held several sales and managerial positions at SilverStream, EDS and Alcatel.

Here is the story of a man who sold his company to Novell.

Bangalore: Silicon Valley veteran Kanwal Rekhi’s belief that an economic slowdown is about the best time to invest in technology start-ups stems from his own experience. Rekhi started on his own with Excelan, a firm he co-founded and later sold to Novell Inc., after being fired from three short-lived jobs in a weak US economy in the 1970s.

Andrea Rossi (Country Manager, Novell) appears in this new video and Novell's CEO is mentioned in this OSBC press release and also here.

Joined by executives from Sun/MySQL, Novell, Mozilla-Firefox and North Bridge Venture Partners, the discussion will focus on the current state of economic and global affairs and what this means for open source technologies. The executives will also share insight on the results of the OSBC-North Bridge Venture Partners “Future of Open Source” survey.

It's a shame that Novell's CEO will open this event. It is shows how detached from freedom OSBC really is.

Partners

ANS turns out to be connected through a partnership to Novell.

ANS already has top-level partner certifications from vendors including Cisco, Microsoft, VMware and Novell.

Novell's relationship with Avaya is mentioned briefly here and here. Novell's relationship with Autonomy is not omitted from their latest press release, either. Novell is still pushing more case studies into YouTube to promote itself, but that's just business as usual. ⬆