Brainshare Reports: NLD 10, Novell's Linux Switch

An anonymous reader submits "Computer World has an article about Novell Linux Desktop 10, which was just announced at Brainshare, that it plans to compete directly with Windows. One of the biggest things about NLD 10 is that it will have the desktop search engine Beagle as a feature." Also from Brainshare, Joe Barr writes on NewsForge about the significance of Novell's ongoing (multi-year) transition to Linux for all of its 6,000 desktops. Consultants and software sellers of all stripes won't soon run out of TCO arguments for the products they want to push, but Novell claims to have saved $900,000 last year in Microsoft license fees alone.

Comments

Saving money

[Spodlink05]

They only took out two Microsoft licenses?

Exit strategy

[YodaToo]

Now if all of you just rush to buy shares of Novell, I can finally sell mine. Thanks in advance.

Alone?

[Otter]

Consultants and software sellers of all stripes won't soon run out of TCO arguments for the products they want to push, but Novell claims to have saved $900,000 last year in Microsoft license fees alone.

Y'see, the point of "total" is that you're not looking at individual costs "alone"...

Re:Alone?

[jericho4.0]

The OP is pointing out that _any_ switch to linux would save you MS license fees, that's a given. The question is; Does the increased cost of training, support, and administration swallow that savings?

IMHO, it's pretty clear that TCO is lower with a partial or total switch to linux. There are exeptions, like small businesses without IT resources, but by and large, IT costs go down.

Re:Version Ten

[CameronGary]

NLD is descended from SuSE, which is up to version 9

Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight??

[Adam Avangelist]

Can anyone explain to me this hype of meta-data searching. I for one do not understand the benefits of it one bit. When I saw the Microsoft demonstration video of WinFS it did not seem revolutionary or impressive. I don't understand why we would need beagle either. And if beagle every does take off will it run on other Linux distributions.

Personally I just store my files in My Documents folder and directory on Windows Xp and Linux respectfully; I have no need for a fancy search and when I do, find and Window's Find are adequate.

Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight??

[crazyvas]

Not everyone might be as organized as you are. Many people like to throw their files all in one folder, and spend time figuring out what they want. Meta-data searching will hopefully reduce the time to retrive. The major problem with Windows Find is that results are not indexed and cached. An analogy would be a user typing a word into google, and google *initiating* a web crawl to go through thousands and thousans of servers to find the word. That is simply inefficient if you search frequently. A utility as simple as "locate" or "slocate" has solved this problem under Unix for ages. After installing Google deskstop, I have used it several times, though I should add that I've used it much less than I thought I would.

Re:Beagle, Winfs, Spotlight??

[johnnyb]

I haven't used beagle, but here's the general case for large-scale meta-data searching:

If I'm looking for information on, say, the E-Zuper project I working on at work. This allows me to turn up everything that refers to it, whether its an email, a document, a bookmark -- anything. And note that two of those things only exist within certain applications -- the email and the bookmark aren't physical files. They are conceptual objects.

Likewise, you could say, "look at everything I did yesterday", and turn up emails, website visits, documents, etc.

Or you could say, "show me everything by Stan Sterner" and the same thing would happen.

For those of us whose data repositories are diverse and not always file-based, it would be a great blessing. Not to mention that meta-searching is useful even just with normal documents.

If you can assign arbitrary meta attributes, you can bypass the limitations of a traditional directory structure. For example, I can search and find documents that I'm supposed to have completed by tomorrow, if I include an attribute such as "date-needed" on those files. This will pull from every folder (which are likely arranged by project, not date). I could also add priority tags, and search by priority.

Re:Version Ten

[FidelCatsro]

I think since its basicaly Suse , they are jumping on the suse numbering .Since the last version of SuSe was 9.2 then NLD 10 is a logical follow up .
This also keeps the numbering in good sted with a few of the other distros

Changed their mind.

[FreeLinux]

that it plans to compete directly with Windows.

The funny thing about this was that in the past and at last year's Brainshare, Novell had stated that they had no intention of competing directly against Windows. They even insinuated that attempting such competition was madness.

By the way. Joe Barr reported yesterday that SuSE 9.3 Professional will also include Beagle. Not that you can't download Beagle anyway.

Beagle an Odd Name?

[Daredevil73]

Any one else think naming your premium feature the same as the worst virus for Windows perhaps not a great marketing move?

Ouch!

[Danuvius]

One of the biggest things about NLD 10 is that it will have the desktop search engine Beagle as a feature.

Microsoft does not stand a chance!!

Re:A Bad Idea.

[jav1231]

Yeah, like they know to go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Office\Word\ now and find winword.exe? Why don't they just go find it in the menu like they do with Windows? Oh, because your whole point would be moot.

Re:A Bad Idea.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Yeah, I've seen that happen. I use OS X by preference for most tasks, and I think they strike a good middle ground. They put most native programs in /Applications. In a shared environment users can install programs to ~/Applications. The BSD subsystem applications are stored in /usr/bin and the other historically expected locations. Newbies look in /Applications and find everything. CLI gurus find everything where they expect too.

Watching a Mac user run Windows or Linux is painful. They try to move or delete programs and just can't understand why it doesn't work.

If anyone can do it, Novell can. But can they?

[jht]

Novell has the resources and expertise to make Linux a truly viable desktop OS for Joe Corporate User. That all said, I'm not sure they will be able to out-market Microsoft enough to make a dent - even with their new management that's come in over the last couple of years, Novell remains the prototypical company that would open up a sushi bar, and advertise it with a sign saying:

"Cold Raw Dead Fish for Sale!"

(and I'm a Novell Partner- i like Novell!)

I've seen their new Open Enterprise Server (the SuSE/NetWare fusion) and it's tremendously impressive - I spent time in a class on it last week. The current NLD (based on SuSE 9.0) is a good solid desktop, which I run on one of my Dell boxes. Somebody out there is going to make Linux into a truly viable desktop player, and it'll probably be Novell in spite of their poor marketing skills.

I just hope that NLD doesn't turn out to be the "only" shot at a widespread penetration of the corporate desktop for Linux in general. Linux is doing just fine on the back end, but on the desktop right now the only real "alternative" is Apple - we need a good Linux-based Third Option to really start nibbling away at Windows.

Novell may get us something we need: drivers.

[jotaeleemeese]

Up to date, latest and greatest ones.

I don't care if they are bnaries, the important think would be that any Linux user could get hold of one.

With Novell, RH, Sun and IBM pushing for commercial Linux desktops we may get this more often thatn we currently do now.

Novell rocks

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

and I just heard from a guy working for Blackberry that they're working on making the Blackberry Enterprise Server work on Novell Groupwise Linux boxes. Oh happy day, when I can dump Exchange :)
Thanks for talking the talk and walking the walk, Novell. IBM, when are you going to switch the corporate desktops?