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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.
Netware has its places. NT still can't do things that are important for file and print servers. It just works.
If the core benefits of NetWare existed on a Linux platform, nothing would keep companies from jumping at it. The truth is that many of these things (SALVAGE being my favorite) aren't as mature in any of the competitors yet.
People keep NetWare boxes for a LONG time. That alone is a good reason to maintain their own kernel... it makes it comfortable for when that time does come around to upgrade every 6-10 years.
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
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.
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
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).
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.