Novell News » 2006 » May

Novell Marketing Chief Launches Blog

Bruce Lowry — Mon, 08 May 2006 19:22:57 +0000

Our Chief Marketing Officer, John Dragoon, launched a blog today. He joins CTO Jeff Jaffe as Novell's second executive blogger. John's got great experience in a variety of tech marketing and sales jobs, and he's got a real understanding of the myriad issues around tech marketing. Plus, he's just an interesting guy! Check out John's initial post, where he talks about his thoughts on tech marketing, and what he hopes to do with his blog.

Another Step Forward for ODF with ISO Adoption

Bruce Lowry — Wed, 03 May 2006 08:57:00 +0000

The OpenDocument Format (ODF) has now been accepted as a global standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), marking another step forward in the global embrace of ODF. The ODF Alliance, of which Novell is a founding member, put out a press release today welcoming the news. The ISO is the world's largest standards group, representing a network of standards bodies from 156 countries. The momentum towards openness continues….

BusinessWeek on the future of the desktop OS

Kevan Barney — Tue, 02 May 2006 16:02:40 +0000

BusinessWeek's Stephen Wildstrom writes about Vista and the future of the desktop this week. He discusses a new paradigm for PC software, one that sees large and complex operating systems divided into a number of small, simpler units that run on one computer but function independently of each other, specifically mentioning the modularity in Linux today. Makes for an interesting read …

Everybody Likes Assets

Bruce Lowry — Mon, 01 May 2006 17:21:53 +0000

Last week was busy for asset and systems management vendors. Microsoft announced its acquisition of AssetMetrix, and LANDesk will be acquired by Avocent. Those are some interesting moves, but we think Novell's technology will still come out on top.Most software recognition tools use simple file recognition that can "regurgitate" inaccurate licensing information from file headers in the inventory report. The file header information, also known as the "Version Resource Block" or VRB, is notoriously inaccurate:* Incorrect spelling of product names* Information isn't normalized (i.e., Microsoft is listed as "Microsoft Inc." "Microsoft Corp." "Microsoft Corporation")* Run-time and evaluation versions with real product are confused ("I was just *demo'ing* the software, Mr. Policeman, sir!)* Double-count or under-count apps* Incorrect version numbersAnd the list goes on, but the end is the same . . . inaccurate results.Take our approach to asset management. Novell uses a patented fingerprinting technique that positively identifies each application, and actually reports on a one-to-one basis what is licensed on the machine. That kind of sophistication is hard to come by and gives Novell customers a real edge when it comes to demonstrating license compliance.Check out this whitepaper for more information.