Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part III: Pulse Again, SCO's Jeff Hunsaker is Out, GroupWise Items

Zion National Park



Summary: A bundle of news about Novell Pulse, SCO-Novell news, and various other items

With OpenSUSE being the main item this week, not much else could be said about Novell. We wrote about Pulse last week and it is still the most unique item of Novell news.



Pulse



One of our readers, who spotted the noise from Novell's marketing people, argues that Novell still has a pulse -- for now.

Many people think that Novell is controlled directly from Redmond (or certainly sits and gives a paw on command of its Microsoft master). It matters not, the damage “the deal” did to the public perception of Novell IMO shows how insidious a Microsoft relationship can be.


Here is another newer article about Pulse.

Novell has announced the first real-time collaboration platform for the enterprise, Novell Pulse. In addition, Novell stated it is working with Google to enable Novell Pulse users and Google Wave users to seamlessly work together across both systems.


Pulse was also covered or mentioned indirectly under:

i. Thunderbird 3, Raindrop and the Future of Mozilla Messaging

After meeting Ascher in San Francisco and having recently covered both Wave and Novell Pulse-related stories, ReadWriteWeb's first question was obvious: Would Mozilla be merging Thunderbird and Raindrop for a Google Wave-like experience?


ii. ThoughtWorks Studios 'Mingles' with Google Wave

ThoughtWorks Studios was one of three companies demoing software integrations with Google Wave at the conference: Novell showed off a real-time, enterprise collaboration platform called "Pulse," which it plans to integrate with Google Wave; and SAP demoed an application called "Gravity," through which users collaborate on creating and modeling business processes.


iii. Summit: Dealing with communications overload

When you look at some of the tools becoming available, Novell's recent Pulse announcement and Google Wave are examples, you can combine the transient messages around something with something which is persistent through which you can refer to it and which many people can work on.


SCO



Jeff Hunsaker is out! Groklaw writes:

Here's an interview with CEO Shawn Jenkins, to give you the flavor of what they do. It's a software company. I understand it's a company that uses Linux to some degree, actually. I'm sure the techies there are simply thrilled to have Young in their midst. Note his bio leaves the SCO job off the list, which is the same pattern we noticed when he joined SCO in 2004. It must be hard to be an ex-SCO person. Or maybe it's just because he is stressing other skill sets now, like the ability to "handle rapid growth", not something he needed at SCO.

And I notice that the company is hiring, even looking for a general counsel, who will report to Young. They need a Senior Software Engineer (EDI and Java or .NET) too.

So, where did Darl McBride land, I wonder? I haven't heard anything yet. Maybe NASA could send him to the moon. I hear they found water there, so maybe he could bottle it and sell Moon Water from his Harley?


For what it's worth, we have mentioned Jeff Hunsaker in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Here is another important development:

SUSE Moves to Lift Stay on Arbitration; Novell Asks to Consolidate with IBM Litigation or Have Both Cases Assigned to That Judge



Novell has made two moves. In bankruptcy court, SUSE asks that the stay be lifted so the arbitration can go forward. And in Utah, Novell has filed a Notice of Related Proceeding, asking that the SCO v. Novell and SCO v. IBM litigations either be consolidated with SCO v. IBM or at least be assigned to the same judge, Tena Campbell.


Past Software



Certified Novell engineers are mentioned in relation to the impact of an Oracle/Novell takeover.

Radical mergers such as the Oracle/Sun combo could revolutionise and shake up IT. Conversely, Oracle would do well to remember what happens to companies which either overstretch themselves and/or become entrenched in fighting yesterday's wars and settling old scores. Novell became unstuck doing both - remember CNE?


Novell applications are being replaced in North Georgia College & State University, according to this press release

Matrix42 Empirum v12 Suite of Management Products Will Replace Outdated Combination of Manual Processes, Scripts and Novell Applications


Novell support (including Netware) is mentioned in another release and the effect of Novell on 3Com is mentioned following the acquisition announcement (by HP).

1990 – Facing stiff competition from Microsoft and Novell, 3Com gets out of the network operating system business.


GroupWise



GroupWise support in the BlackBerry gets Novell some attention and GroupWise love from Messaging Architects is noted in the following press release:

Messaging Architects and Omni Deliver Innovative Compliance Management for Exchange 2010 and GroupWise 8



Messaging Architects and Omni, recognized leaders in email management products and services, today announced that Omni’s eControl console will support natively Messaging Architects' Email Risk Management and Compliance products. The enhancement will benefit M+Archive and M+Guardian customers with simplified administration management, provisioning and delegation of routine tasks.


There are other new examples of GroupWise support:

...Novell€® GroupWise are supported.


Some BlackBerry support again:

Magticom is offering BlackBerry Enterprise Server for corporate clients, a solution that tightly integrates with IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise and works with existing enterprise systems to enable secure, push-based wireless access to email and other corporate data. BlackBerry services also allow consumers and business users to manage up to ten supported email accounts (including most popular ISP email accounts) from their BlackBerry smartphone.


The defeat of GroupWise is still being debated, even in the 'Microsoft press'.

What technology was the city using for e-mail? The primary e-mail system that the city was using was the Novell one, and I think they also had some instances of Microsoft Exchange as well.


More GroupWise in government:

The departments and agencies whose users will be migrated onto the centralised email platform are already using Exchange, but some installations of IBM's Lotus Notes/Domino and Novell's GroupWise platforms remain throughout the state government.


The National Kidney Foundation has found something to complement GroupWise:

The foundation turned to email archiving as a less labor-intensive means of cutting down on the size of its two GroupWise Post Offices than trying to get stricter about mailbox quotas. Given that GroupWise is not as widely used as Microsoft's Exchange, finding an email archiving vendor that supports it was a tricky and expensive project.


Identity Management



Except for some minor items there was only this press release, but that too is nothing major.

Smart card management solution involving integration with Novell Identity Manager


Security/Recovery



Novell is still capitalising on threat (or perceived threat) and data recovery is said to be assisted by Novell Cluster Services.

Now, all these servers are virtualized and run from a cluster, using Novell Cluster Services . So when a physical machine goes down, the virtual server can be moved to another location with very little downtime. Moving to virtualization also saved in hardware costs. Since newly purchased servers would no longer require hard drives for storage, it could save $7,000 to $8,000 per server, according to the city.


People



Novell has undergone some shuffles at the top.

Mr Poole takes over for acting senior vice president of human resources Scott Semel. Mr Semel continues his role as senior vice president and general counsel at Novell.


To use Novell's explanation:

Novell today announced that Russell Poole, former vice president and senior HR partner, has been named senior vice president, Human Resources, effective immediately. Poole will be based out of Novell’s headquarters in Waltham, Mass., and will report directly to President and CEO Ron Hovsepian. Poole takes over for acting Senior Vice President of Human Resources Scott Semel. Semel continues his role as senior vice president and general counsel at Novell.


There is more to be found here and maybe here.

Former Novell software engineer Verdon Walker has run the race three times with the corporate team "2 Slow 2 Win 2 Dumb 2 Quit."


Partners



The following new press release identifies NDS8 as a Novell partner.

NDS8 (www.nds8.co.uk) is a Novell Platinum Partner and Astaro Preferred Partner, focused on maximising the functionality and reliability of Novell and SuSE applications.


Novell was mentioned in some other press releases, mostly in the footers.

A community college seems to be giving this technical advice about Novell in a new video that it has just uploaded.

Recent Techrights' Posts

"Today's [Red Hat] is run by a cabal of vultures."
it seems safe to assume Red Hat too will languish away
Microsoft Layoffs in 2026 Can be Bigger Than 2025 Microsoft Layoffs (30,000+ Workers Laid Off)
"Is there going to be any reorg or Microsoft layoffs?"
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Represents People, Not Corporations
FSF isn't in the "business" of appeasing oligarchs
IBM: We Can't Make 'AI' (Voice Recognition) Do the Work of a McDonald's Teenager, So Let's Try the Same on Saudi Planes
IBM is lost. It's truly lost.
 
Links 22/12/2025: Facebook "Testing $14.99 Monthly Subscription Fee to Post Links" and "Middle East Petrostates as American Media Owners"
Links for the day
Beyond the World Wide Web (WWW)
We continue to treat Gemini Protocol as a first-class citizen
Serbia: GNU/Linux Rises, Windows Down to All-Time Lows
According to statCounter
"Wrestling With Pigs"
"Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."
Productive Year and Better Access to Techrights' Archives Going Back to 2006
we've long needed and wanted native, local, independent search facilities
Linux Abandoned by Linux Foundation
It speaks for Microsoft and for so-called 'AI' companies
Microsoft Has Practically Given Up on XBox Already
Expect many XBox related layoffs when 2026 starts (Q1)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, December 21, 2025
Gemini Links 21/12/2025: Solstice, Chaos of CSS, and Program Interpreter Fun
Links for the day
Why?
Why write articles?
Microsoft-Connected Publisher Spinning XBox's Death Spiral (It's Dying Fast) as a Strength and Something Deliberate
"Microsoft’s big gaming pivot"
Slop is Rare by Now
A year ago slop was so abundant that we did a whole series about it, and it was daily
Links 21/12/2025: U.S. Strikes in Syria, "Epstein Files Photos Disappear From Government Website"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/12/2025: Labrador Retriever of Lagrange's Developer Dies From Cancer, Political Philosophy, and "Getting to Inbox Zero"
Links for the day
Microsoft is Becoming Irrelevant: The Case of Georgia
Not Georgia Tech
Sirius Open Source is Now Imminently Dead (Struck Off)
compulsory strike-off
Dr. Richard Stallman, Invited by LibreTech Collective, is Giving a Public Talk in Georgia Tech Next Month (Scheller College of Business)
They can probably squeeze about 400 people into this room
25 Years of Activism for GNU/Linux
My passion for GNU/Linux brought a lot of contentment
Africa, Where Microsoft Used De Facto Slaves to Pretend to be "AI", Chatbots Usage is 0.2% of Measured Online Traffic
Judging by recent trends in Africa, many "Windows PCs" are being converted into GNU/Linux computers
New Drone Footage Shows IBM is Dead (Parts of It)
The people who participated in IBM when IBM actually mattered probably have boasting rights, unlike people who work for IBM today
Michael Larabel Adds Slop Category to Phoronix, Quickly Realises That It's Worthless
Phoronix nowadays gets carried away; it made a new category to talk about slop and it decided to call it "intelligence" with some caricature of a brain (that's misleading)Phoronix nowadays gets carried away; it made a new category to talk about slop and it decided to call it "intelligence" with some caricature of a brain (that's misleading)
After 35 Years the World Wide Web, HTML, and HTTP Are Proprietary
HTTP/2 added a lot of complexity (it's just a Google protocol, based on SPDY originally), many image formats are proprietary and patented, HTML got 'replaced' by Java-Scripts [sic], and many URLs (the URL system was created in the early 90s) are just long strings for proprietary 'webapps'
The General Public License (GPL) Inspired the Web's Original Openness/Freedom, According to Tim Berners-Lee
"During the preceding year I had been trying to get CERN to release the intellectual property rights to the Web code under the General Public License (GPL) so that others could use it."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, December 20, 2025
The Register MS Has Lowered Its Standards Considerably
Incidentally, we've only just noticed that "US editor for The Register since July 2025" has not been active for 4 weeks already
Scamfarms, Spamfarms, and Slopfarms in "Linux" Clothing
Today, Linux searches in Google News produced no slop at all. That's an improvement.
Did Bill Gates Lobby to Blur the Face of the Young Woman He Openly Braces (and Who Isn't His Wife)?
"This photo of of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with a woman whose face is blurred out is just one of 68 more photos and documents released today."
Links 20/12/2025: Microsoft Ruins Televisions, 'Epstein Files' Deeply Sanitised (to Protect Particular Culprits)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/12/2025: Merry Christmas 2025 and Running a Factorio Headless Server on FreeBSD with the Linuxulato
Links for the day
With 10 Days Left, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Already Raised Close to $300,000 This Winter
they're besieged by despicable corporations and very despicable people
The Real Problem With Rust is Not "Wokeness" (It Never Was)
Don't feed the trolls who attack "Rust People" on political grounds
2025 in Numbers
What was very good about this year is that we truly got "into the rhythm" of publishing
More Microsoft Layoffs Coming Soon
When I spoke about Microsoft layoffs (routinely) I got very viciously attacked by Microsoft boosters
My Humble Assessment of the Future of Red Hat, A Company That IBM is Flushing Down the Loo
GNU/Linux will be OK without Red Hat, but shaping the future of it matters because we don't want companies like Valve (DRM) to set the agenda
Probably the Least Useful Gadgets, Ever
as if a "smart" thing worn on the wrist is the "new Rolex"
Former Manager at IBM Research (Yorktown) Says Why IBM is Doomed and the Anonymous Tipline (Speak Up) is a Trap
IBM isn't willing to change or to address internal issues
Links 20/12/2025: Fentanylware Becomes CheeTok and "Why Roomba Died"
Links for the day
Linux Foundation: Richard Stallman Developed Only a Software Licence
We already criticised this report several times last night
Impulsive Writing, Quotas, and Keeping Things as Concise as Feasible
A 10-word sentence being read by a million people can have the same impact or magnitude (exposure-wise) as a million-word book being read by just 10 people
Gemini Links 20/12/2025: Christmas Songs, Storms, and Old Web
Links for the day
Coming to Grips With a Lack of Future at IBM
Red Hat's future doesn't look bright under the auspices as they seem right now
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 19, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, December 19, 2025
Links 20/12/2025: Media Layoffs, a Third of Online Traffic is Bots
Links for the day