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Novell Not Dumping Netware
jerel writes "eWeek describes how Novell will still develop and support NetWare. The eWeek article quotes Bruce Lowry, a top spokesman for Novell as saying, 'The bottom line is no. The whole thing with Linux is an additive thing. We're not dumping NetWare, we're adding Linux.' NetWare 7.0 will allow users to either upgrade to the latest version of the NetWare kernel or move to Linux." I guess this answers any lingering doubts going around.
Or is it shifting to linux too?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from IBM, to Oracle and now Novell, Linux is keeping these old hat computer businesses relevant. I think its a mistake for Novell to keep Netware around, they should just focus on developing for the linux kernel. If they continue developing for both platforms the quality of each will suffer.
In linux libertas
I read today that Oracle was continuing to speed ahead with it's internal Linux deployment and full commitment to Linux support in thier products. Nobody but those being sued seem phased by these feeble attempts of SCO to squash a very powerfull penguin.
They aren't going to make more money by dividing their development resources between Netware and Linux. So there will be less development work done on Netware.
They are saying this to try to calm their customers so that they "abandon" netware as slowly as possible, giving Novell time to build up a platform and revenue stream based on Linux.
It is simple business strategy and it is very transparent.
Don't just accept what they say. Read between the lines.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
So I guess it's just Novell users who are dumping NetWare, isn't it?
This is not too surprising.. They have a ton of Netware devices installed, and a lot of administrators intimately familiar with those Netware devices. There's no way they could do a flash cut. Even if they wanted to completely drop the "legacy" Netware stuff, it would take them years to migrate all their customers.
or the eight school districts (not counting Canada) either
Support Israeli punk bands. Man Alive.
I do not think it would be good to take a total flying leap off into the unknown. Novell is smart at least to have some sort of transition period. Releasing a linux-based version of their service software is a great idea, but Netware has existing mindshare and customers. (At the least, those customers will want to ensure they will continue to get indefinite support.) I'm sure they just want the linux software to prove itself. I'm sure it will-- for new installations, a linux install with all of novell's edirectory and everything looks very attractive, and i expect people to flock to it. I imagine that once they see the Linux-novell-thing is taking off, they'll decided it's proved itself and put more and more resources into it as it gets bigger. Eventually Netware will fall into maintainence mode, and there will be only Linux for the thrust of their development.
I can't imagine Novell ever ceasing at least to continue doing hardware support updates for Netware. Novell's biggest attraction in these last few years after WinNT's taken over is that you can install Netware once and train your support staff for it, and then never have to use anything else ever again. It will end that, and screw their corporate reputation, if they suddenly announce "yeah, after now if you want to do new instals, you'll have to learn to use linux." I'm sure most of novell's current customers will migrate to linux all willingly and such, but forcing them to is not at all a smart move by novell.
I mean, Novell's core *base* at this point, or at least it seems from where i'm sitting, is those uber-uber-uber-conservative-purchasing-department situations.. Novell's mostly got mindshare around the people who still consider *NT* unproven. How comfortable would these people be with Novell suddenly offering *only* a new linux-based product?
That said, the linux netware-y thing should rock.
Novell exec #1: hrm. we're going well as a company, and all's stable. can we do anything to improve our lot?
Novell exec #2: not really. everything we've planned is working out as it should and we're on track to continue that way
Novell exec #1: damn. how about we put a bit more emphasis on linux, just to piss SCO off
Novell exec #2: now you're talking!
Novell denies allegations that they ever were affiliated with Netware.
.NET thing," spokesman Bob Randolph was quoted as saying late Thursday.
"No, no no. You've got it all wrong. We're the ones with that
...that when I bought their license for linux they were throwing in the IP for Netware for free!! Lying bastards!
SQL server 200X is better than oracle/mysql (pathetic)/whatever.
Yes, it is. Please, let us know what site you are running with SQL Server. Please tell me that you have credit cards on it. oh yeah baby. Well, you don't have to tell us. I can find out on my own, once you let me know who you are. Admit it people, Microsoft has crushed us.
Crushed us??? you mean crushed you. Doing just fine here. Think I will stay down this path.
At my company we just recently rolled out some new Novell software. It's all web based and very easy to use. When I first joined the company I had not worked much with Novell and thought of it as archaic. Even with age, Netware is a good product that makes Window's box's easy to manage. I am happy to here about the Linux integration and Ximian addition. Now I can get my Linux and Novell administration too!
We might aswell upgrade the Netware aswell
I thought we talked about this.
It's over, you're just too possessive.
I hope we can stay good friends.
Sincerely,
Novell
It turned out however, that the Novell sales team only knew how to sell Netware, and Unixware got nowhere. (Wow, that almost rhymes!
After about 5 years they sold the group to HP, to work on HP-UX, which kept them for another 5 years or so, and then closed the site and lay everyone off. (After they successfully ported HP-UX to the Itanium platform). C'est la vie.
Despite how people here on /. seem to think that NetWare is this archaic dog, NetWare does have its place, and a good product for what it does.
Novell may have allowed themselves to get into a bad situation by not realizing how to combat M$ in the early days, but just as recently as a year or so ago I still knew of a couple of NetWare installations that were used in small POS/Video Rental type places.
More to the point, NetWare has a proven track record and is dead-bang reliable. Sure, it can have glitches and problems during installation, but my experience has been that once NetWare is installed, configured, and running OK, then they just work. And they keep on working. It usually takes a hardware problem to cause a real disruption.
I hated to use NetWare, mostly because I had never used it before and had one customer that required it, and so I had to learn it in order to solve that customer's requirements (now there's a concept, actually listening to and delivering what the customer actually wanted). It was a pain (about 8-1/2 years ago), but it worked, and it did the job it was supposed to do.
So before people start knocking them too badly, sneering at them, or looking down their noses at them, just remember their stability was more like Linux than M$, and once you knew "their way" of doing things you actually COULD make a stable server that didn't HAVE to be rebooted or coddled regularly as part of "preventative maintenance". Which would YOU rather admin? M$ servers? Or NetWare servers?
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Most people who say that are MCSEs. =)
I just spent the last day replacing my netware servers with LANtastic!
I really hope Novell do well on Linux, it is the kind of OS that they should have had all along which would have let them concentrate on what they do best.
I recently wrote a series of reports for my boss in which I had to make the cases for and against a port of our product (an app server) to Netware. Bear in mind that it was over two years ago now that we decided to discontinue Netware development because sales had dropped through the floor (it was, and still is, available in older versions which we are quite happy to sell and support). Apparently, our sales department discovered that there was still some residual demand which was affecting their commission. The idea was shot down by the board after only a few seconds' reflection - apparently, my boss (Technical Director) didn't even have to present our work on the matter, they just knew it was a daft idea!
Is anyone actually considering picking up Netware development for commercial products? I bet there is not a single one out there. Prove me wrong.
Netware has become a legacy faster than anything I have ever seen - even the mainframe concept will outlive it. Netware is dead, long live Novell.
Thanks so much to the company that has been so innovative in so many ways, yet is the same company to release quite possibly the most unstable and unreliable NOS client ever in the history of enterprise computing. Thanks for telling us that you're about to blow off what is quite possibly the best-equipped product to do the job you've been claiming to try to do for years while at the same time telling us you're going to continue to support a proprietary product that you're still struggling to really make work with the world's most popular desktop OS. Thanks for letting us know that you're not a forward-thinking organization and that you're not discarding your now-bordering-on-irrelevant past products in favor of the open source future. Thanks for shit-ifying your client to the point that we're forced to use AD. Thanks for 20% (NDS for NT) of my helpdesk calls. Thanks for giving me something other than mainframe to call "legacy". Thanks for being self-destructive, and for keeping me employed, you irrelevant, unimportant, ancient, ack-basswards thinking morons. Oh, and thanks for the inadvertent tip to sell the shares of your company I bought a few days ago.
</drunken post>
Novell is also including Apache and MySQL with the latest Netware. I do believe PHP also run on Netware.
It looks to me like they are using well known open source products to add value to their own proprietary products.
They probably helped with the porting, but it is a smart way of getting great software into the Netware distribution.
Redhat and SuSE slam SCO
:-)
IBM jumps in and whacks the good old folding chair on SCO's head
Oracle announces it will be a Linux shop through and through, taking all of SCOs threating talk and brushing them off like a runt.
Novell anounces that while it will keep Netware around, there will be a Linux option, further breaking SCO's back with their loss of any credibility.
I think now that almost every major heavy hitter in Industry from Movies to Wall Street is using Linux, in the process of deploying it, or making plans too, billyg must be seriously thinking, do I keep stonewalling or port everything over.
With all the FUD SCO tried to spread, the press releases and news reports throw it right back in their face, the very fact IBM's lawyers put SCO's GPL violations in their complaint validates it all.
ESR may be extreme, he may be a pain in the ass, but the man did make a major contribution to computing and this whole saga deserves to be written in history.
These are good times for the battle tested UNIX/Linux admins out there, it's really hard to be a paper Linux admin(RHCE whatever) and not get called on it, funny thing is most Linux people can do Windows, but they leave that for the help
If they continue developing for both platforms the quality of each will suffer.
Despite all public posturing to the contrary, Novell seems to be doing as much to Netware as AOL does to Netscape. Mozilla doesn't need AOL for survival OR growth, neither does Linux need Novell.
Methinks since SCO seems to be losing out on the extortion route, they're using their brother Novell to make money on Linux.
SCO and Novell are part of the Can-O'-Pee group.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Netware has been in decline here in the UK for years. My first two contracts were in companies which used Netware 3, and who were starting to be introduced to the wonders of NT4 by newly MCSE'd MS visionaries....
Some servers were migrated to Netware 4, but NT was on the up.
After the IT jobs crash, you're lucky to even see any Netware skilled jobs available, and if you do, the rate is comical (this also applies to Windows and Cisco though).
Where I am now, we use Win 2000 Server for File and Print and Application serving. It really has been very good. It's been so long since I worked with anything Novell, I can't see why I would want to go down that road again now.
We use Linux for our Trading desktop OS and SUN as a very stable backend. All works very nicely so far.
Us techies can always appreciate a well design OS like Netware, but we also live in the real world....I don't care that F&P services are faster on Netware, I care more about the speed of our network or any other bottleneck of_the_day.
Our core IT policy is dictated by our parent company, you should have heard them when we switched from SUN to Linux (although they have just done the same thing)! You should also hear them laugh if Novell is mentioned....
Good luck Novell, but for me you're out of the running (at least while I'm in this job!).
MS's solution is to go all MS but for most large corporates it isn't possible. Novell can make money integrating diverse platforms for enterprises.
The Ximian purchase is strange in that Ximian is primarily a desktop focused company but for large corporates who want to replace single task workstations for call centres, process workers with Linux and integrate with a larger Windows network then Novell will be able to deliver such a solution.
Cheers
VikingBrad
I got into a hotel, after doing 18 hours work off site .. slumped down onto the bed, turned on the TV and caught the last 10 minutes of that movie.
...
AAAAAAAAAAARRGH!
Sorry, had to share
Robert Anton Wilson
However, it maybe all very fine and dandy to embrace the Linux kernel BUT does Novell have a long term plan for Linux besides embracing it to be the flavour of the month?
I've seen these types of things before, companies mearly jumping on a bandwagon because it happened to pass their house.
Where is Novell heading in the next 5-7years? what are going to be their target market? Where will their network opereating system fit into? high end? small business? anti-Microsoft-and-linux crowd?
If it were ME I would embrace FreeBSD 5.2 (once released) and base an operating system off that, incorporate all the products that are currently available as seperate titles, bundle and sell it with a subscription support contract.
The benefit of FreeBSD is that is allows one to retain control over their investment so that if they, for example, spend $100million making a feature which quaduples the speed of the server, why then should they simply hand it over? if they invested that money into Linux they may as well, under that senario, grab $100million, throw some petrol over it and throw a lighter to it.
Why should Redhat or SuSE benefit of the investment of Novell?
I want to see Novell, Linux, *BSD and MacOS X to not only survive but become a real pain in the ass for Microsoft. Just when they think they have beaten one player, another jumps up and improves on Microsofts offerings.
"The difference between pornography and erotica is the lighting" - Woody Allen
...about Larry Ellis...
(first day, new eyes)
-1 Asinine
We're not talking about Version 1 here!
Novell's core strategy has been to leverage it's existing technology (NetWare and eDirectory) to get the company into more profitable markets. That doesn't mean that NetWare is a dead or dying product. In fact NetWare 6 has been a big seller for the company. However idiot analysts (Gartner et al) don't know anything about any technology that doesn't have a mouse and pretty gui. You can't run Word on NetWare so many people don't care about the OS. More importantly NetWare is widely interoperable so that security authentication, resource sharing and other services function on almost any platform going. Imagine a world where HR could input the name of a new employee into the Personnel system with a start date. The network security system would detect that new employee and create a login account, email address and file share without any user intervention. Then imagine that all these functions use software from different vendors. Thats what Novell brings to the table. Put that in your bigoted pipes and smoke it.
Modern definition of an expert: Someone who comes from far away with a powerpoint presentation.
In case of ./ing:
Not content with already having issued IBM with a lawsuit, SCO is to sue Novell for illegally placing UNIX code in Novell Netware. According to SCO CEO Darl McBride, Novell never owned UNIX's patents or copyrights in the first place.
In the release McBride said, "Novell continues to say that it owns the UNIX System V patents, yet it must know that it does not. A simple review of U.S. Patent Office records reveals that SCO owns those patents." Further, "We believe it unlikely that Novell can demonstrate that it has any ownership interest whatsoever in those copyrights
because we purchased these rights in August 1995 directly from IBM"
Also this morning, in SCO's 2nd quarter earning call, Jack Messman SCO CEO said that there's no mention of copyright and patents in the Novell law suit and that contract issues are really what the IBM lawsuit is about. At the same time, though, he admitted that SCO had been talking with IBM over UNIX IP issues and that Novell's 1990 purchase agreement of UNIX from IBM was 'confused' on the issue of UNIX's patents and copyrights.
Bruce Perens, director of Software in the Public Interest, a non-profit, Open Source development organization, says, "SCO's brief reply to Novell explicitly acknowledges that SCO owns the UNIX copyright."
McBride further claimed, "We believe that we own the UNIX copyrights, and we're confident that this can be proven in court." Gary Schuster, Novell's senior VP of communications responded to this claim by saying, "SCO will find out in court the the true force of our vengeance - we shall wreak havoc."
Perhaps Mono has been overlooked as a large factor in Novell's purchase of Ximian and general alliance with Linux. Becoming a leader in Mono development would allow Novell to be seen as going head-to-head with Microsoft's flagship, .NET, in the ultimate "embrace and extend" (Open Source Software).
I'm used to Outlook in corporate environments (as a user) and now am in a company that has Novell. GroupWise is such s POS. Its one of the most limited Email / PIMs I've ever used. THE only advantage is it's not as susceptible to virii as Outlook and Exchange. GroupWise is still at a mid 1990's level of user interface and ease of use. It may be great in a back end, but for us end users, its SUCH SH!T!
from the mid 90s with a Lion on them which advertised NetWare? If I remember rightly the slogan read "We've taken the lions share by keeping quiet".
Time for an update with a dodo on it?
You mean RMS, don't you?
They are now making a distinction between the NetWare kernel and the NetWare product/service, which I have never seem them make before. The NetWare product is not going away, the kernel might, the last sentence of the statement says it all. I believe they'll be phasing the NetWare kernel out. NetWare's kernel has fallen way behind in a few areas, like SAN (multipathing in particular), the whole ring 0 concept has hurt stabilty with third party code. There isn't a real commitment for hardware manufacturers to write drivers for NetWare, but, right now, there is for Linux .
If you get NetWare X.X and you pop in a CD and boot Linux and see NetWare for the console does it really matter? I say no.
Netware is essentially an environment that runs on top of an underlying OS - that OS used to be DOS - and now it's going to be Linux.
Stop spreading FUD - this is a major step forward. Go Netware!!
when Novell first bought USL and tried develop and market UnixWare. Part of the plan then was to use the UNIX core to replace NetWare's non-preemptive multitasking core and develop what they called a SuperNOS. Part of NT's FUD was that it was both an app server and file server and Novell saw UNIX as a way to compete. As other posters have mentioned, MS still hasn't equalled NetWare's file, print, and directory capabilities.
Novel understands that they should not kill their golden-egg laying goose, even though it doesn't lay that many eggs any more.
Legacy products can be very, very profitable. Good call Novell.
-- $G
The only tricky thing is the difference in file system semantics between the Netware way of doing things and the Unix way - in Netware, if you have read access to
This is important, as the Netware model makes a sysadmin's life easier - he can focus on who owns what files, rather than worrying about the directory structure.
However, file systems like XFS allow for extra metadata to be stored, so in theory a user space daemon could provide Netware file semantics on a Unix file system.
www.eFax.com are spammers
...can't...stop...myself...please...kill. ..me...
This seems vaguely reminiscent of the swap for their own protocol ipx/spx for the more robust and powerfull tcp/ip. Once they fully realize what Linux can do for them I think we'll see Netware fade away more and more.
for good reasons. Netware has been finely tuned for 20 years to be an unbeatable peformance and reliability machine. When they ported, they discovered just how fine tuned it was. The Netware OS doesn't have to do anything at all but run Netware. It isn't really an OS so much as a framework for a program and as such can be tuned far more than any general purpose OS. Sure, with Linux you have the source and could do the tuning, but they had the Unix source before and backed off when they realized that it wouldn't be Unix any more by the time they finished tuning. It would be Netware. There is no reason to think that Linux would be any different. By the time they cut out every bit of general purpose fluff and hardcoded every little thing to their exact needs, it would be Netware.
?? We're going well as a company and all's stable ?? I don't think so. Novell is not a stable company.
Read Novell's web site, particularly paying attention to their Investor Relations section. There are two places to spend some time: Novell's financial statements over the past five years and their statement of risk factors. (All data quoted here taken from Novell's web site)
Just in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, Novell has seen no growth in net profit. Novell's income has essentially been flat at ~ $1.1B since 1997. During Internet Boom year 1999, Novell did post a surge of about $200M and then dropped back to the $1B revenue waterline.
NET PROFIT DECLINES
From 1997 - 2002, Novell has had difficulty generating net profits.
1997 -$78.3M
1998 +$101M
1999 +$190M
2000 -$49M
2001 -$272.8M
2002 -$246M.
REDUCTION IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT BUDGET:
Since 1998, Novell has spent progressively less money on product development. In 1998, Novell spent $235M on development and in 2002 spent $169M on development. R&D costs declined in all intervening years.
REDUCTION IN SALES AND MARKETING:
Marketing budgets have been essentially cut each year since 1998, with a large spike in 2000, during which $495M was spent. In 2002, Novell spent $358M on marketing.
STOCK PRICE:
Novell's share price has steadily shed value since January 2000, when NOVL traded at ~$40/share. It's share price as I write is $3.47.
STATEMENT OF RISK:
The current statement of risk on the Novell site is substantially more tame than when I originally researched Novell the first of this year. But check it out. Novell has substantial barriers to prosperity in the IT industry.
ANALYSIS:
Novell has steadily lost traction in the market over the last four years. Their decisions to decrease spending in product development and sales & marketing is puzzling when compared to their statement of risk: how can they confront the dominance of larger competitors by spending less money on new product development and less money on getting the word out to companies about their products? Oh sure, you can claim they are spnding their money "smarter" but that's a weak claim because Microsoft can outspend nearly any company it chooses to go head to head with, and a lightweight competitor like Novell stands no chance (anyone remember Netscape?).
Is Novell's emphasis on Linux a lighthearted attempt to piss off SCO? No - Novell cannot be so trivial with its short supply of cash. The Linux move is an attempt to ride the coat tails of OSS in an effort to drive down product development costs. They cannot gain traction in networking and messaging so they are seeking to capitalize on the growth of Linux.
An interesting strategy but this is an approach that has more to do with survival and protecting an asset base than it has to do with innovative competition.
Novell may not be flopping around on the dock gasping for air but it definitely appears to be in the fisherman's boat, heading into shore.
-Everyone laughs at lemmings but no one ever wants to admit to ever being one.
I was just looking around their site for Linux information, and that came up.
I'm very glad to hear that. I've worked with ZENworks in the past, and it's one of the most useful tools for administrating desktops. I can't even estimate the amount of time application distribution saves (from actually installation, to updates, to fixing broken installations, to making applications [locally] available to users no matter where they are).I don't have a huge amount of network admin experience compared to some of the people here, but I've set up and managed 3 different networks: NT4 with about 10 workstations, Netware 5 with about 130 workstations, and 2000+ActiveDirectory with about 15 workstations. Netware 5 was, by far, the easiest to administrate network. Netware5 was at a school, so it was a more restricted environment, but was also very varied. The nice thing was teachers had a bit less restrictive setups, but basically every workstation in the school could be used for any purpose.
I tried to setup application distribution at a software company I worked at with ActiveDirectory. That was an exercise in futility. Now, I'm not a MSCE, and I've haven't had much formal training in administration, but within about two days, it had caused more headaches (apps not working properly due to missing files, access problems, etc) than it was worth, and we went back to the traditional machine-by-machine manual installation. Sure, it's only 15 machines, so it's not a big deal, but I was a developer, not an administrator. If a machine died, it would have been nicer to be able to put the basic image on, and have a fully operational machine again (like netware could do) - which takes about 5 minutes of my time. Perhaps I didn't give it enough time, or maybe I just didn't have it setup right, but I accomplished the same thing on Netware in 2 weeks (from scratch) with no previous netware experience.
I work on the NT4 network right now (it's been running for around 4 years), and as soon as I have time, I will be replacing it with linux, with the goal of replacing the workstations as well. I get angry every time I run across something I can't do without some 3rd party app, that I could do in about 2 minutes with a shell script.
I think I'll keep an eye on Netware, though. If I can get the power of Netware plus the flexibility of Linux, I will be very happy.
Speak before you think
.. especially file-rights. And I'm an MCSE, so you'd think I'd prefer Windows.
The main reason Netware lost popularity is because Microsoft intentionally sabotaged the Netware workstation-client. For the first year NT was out, anyone loading NT Workstation on a Netware network was in for a world of hurt. Novell eventually figured-out that the NT Workstation's network module -- which Novell had to go through -- was refusing to do any non-MS service lookups for 60sec. MS eventually fixed it but not until they'd forced a LOT of corporate clients to 'upgrade' their servers from Netware to NT in order to 'fix' the slow Netware network.
I'm sure MS continued to throw similar roadblocks in front of Novell in the years that followed. I mean, most of Novell's products are ROCK SOLID, all except for the Netware client which has needed continual updates as they've continued to find bug after bug.
The defense rests, your honor.
SCO definitely *is* a part of Canopy.
Novell is not.
Ray Noorda headed up Canopy at its beginning, I think. Maybe that is where you are drawing lines of familial relationship.
Novell lost the market exactly for not worrying about the future. They sat on their near-90% market share on the server OS and thought nobody would ever threaten them. Well, Microsoft did. Had they made the move from IPX to IP sooner, history would've been different.
.NET solution.
.NET since 1999 and they are still not there. They say Longhorn will mark the new .NET era in the desktop, but that is scheduled for 2005. Seven years is a long time...
.NET) and IBM (Linux and Websphere). I would love to see a third strong competitor in that race...
Now it seems they're looking ahead and envisioning a way to reverse that. I think they have a pretty good technical argument if you ask me:
1) Move their valuable software (Netware, NDS, GroupWise, ZenWorks) from a dying platform to one that has a future (Linux).
2) Acquire companies in order to provide the missing pieces in their solution. Buying Ximian was a very smart move.
3) Play the "complete architecture" game. They now have enough breadth (server OS, client OS, directory, web server, application server, collaboration, management) to provide a coherent architecture. Microsoft is #1 on this game. IBM works hard on this as well.
4) They still have a valuable name in the industry and a lot of experience. That is reflected in their superb support, training and certification programs. Enterprises love that. Their 1.3 billion market value also sounds pretty good to them.
5) They can now move from a defensive position and actually attack the competition (Microsoft, IBM).
6) They might actually end up being the only vendor out there to support a hybrid application server platform, providing both a J2EE and a
I do think, however, that they have a pretty hard time ahead of them. Things that concern me:
a) Migrating a full platform is not easy. I wonder how many years will pass before Novell can actually move everything to Linux. Microsoft has been trying to move from Win32 to
b) Integration is no easy task. They have a big challenge in integrating the several overlaping technologies they now own (like ZenWorks and Red Carpet). They say they're committed to doing it, which is already a good start. IBM, for instance, has been acquiring multiple technologies and branding it all as WebSphere, but the integration is clearly not there yet.
c) Their "end-to-end" solution is not complete. They're missing some critical pieces like the enterprise database software. Microsoft has SQL Server and IBM has DB2. They have nothing. I wonder if they're planning to merge with Sybase (the resulting company would be pretty interesting and Sybase also has Linux plans). They could also endorse mySQL, but it just does not seem to be at the enterprise level yet. Thinking of M&A, it would be funny if Oracle bought Novell (it's a third of PeopleSoft's market value and has less competing products).
d) While they reorganize and migrate their code base, everybody else will also be busy at work. If they don't work fast and integrate upcoming technologies, they might end up being too late. Microsoft and IBM are delivering on the Web Services promise, spitting out products as soons as the standards get published. Will Novell be able to keep up?
e) They must keep their old customers happy, keeping up with updates to the old codebase and providing a smooth migration path. That's how Microsoft succeeded and IBM (with OS/2) failed.
It's nice, however, to see a third force attempting to rise in the market. Today, enterprise platforms are clearly polarized between Microsoft (Windows and