Novell News » 2006 » June

More Global Momentum on ODF

Bruce Lowry — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 09:12:15 +0000

The ODF Alliance, of which Novell is a founding member, put out a press release today highlighting global developments in support of ODF. It cites recent decisions by governments in Belgium, France and Denmark to promote use of ODF as a standard for document exchange in those countries. The ODF Alliance also announced nice progress in expanding its own ranks, with some 220 organizations from over 40 countries joining the group. The open wave rolls on….

Time for hands-on evaluation

Kevan Barney — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:17:01 +0000

You've been reading about it, and maybe even writing about it. But if you haven't had an opportunity to take it for a spin, here's your chance. Preview versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 products, for both the server and desktop, are now available for download and evaluation.The news brief is here, and the software is here. Put it through its paces, and let us know what you think.

Novell Joins Open Source Storage Management Project

Bruce Lowry — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:38:33 +0000

Novell has just joined the Aperi project, which IBM, the project founder, today announced is moving under the Eclipse umbrella. Aperi is focused on helping organizations manage their storage environments and improve their access to stored information — regardless of what storage hardware or software they are using. Members of the Aperi community are working together to build and evolve a common, open platform, following the Software Networking Industry Association (SNIA) SMI-S standards for CIM-based storage management, for managing all brands of storage systems. Novell's focus and potential contributions to the Aperi project will be around the enablement of storage management at the Linux operating system level. The project will be a nice complement to the standards work around storage that takes place in SNIA.

More on Battle of the Betas

Bruce Lowry — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 09:44:35 +0000

I blogged on June 13 a CRN comparative review between the betas of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Vista. We've learned from CRN that that article surpassed 75,000 page views that week, making it the most read story in the 9 year history of the Channelweb network.There's clearly significant interest in the upcoming Linux desktop from Novell. Customers will be making a desktop migration decision in the coming year or two. As this review, and others, make clear, there is now a legimate Linux option for corporate users.

It Depends on Whom You Ask

Bruce Lowry — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:31:15 +0000

I was struck by the juxtaposition of two articles reporting on the news of Ron Hovsepian's move to the CEO job this week. This article from eWeek reported a conversation with an industry analyst from Gartner who felt, in general, that the move was a strong one for Novell. This article from TechNewsWorld.com, negative in tone, was based largely on comments from a different industry analyst from the Yankee Group. Pretty divergent opinions, obviously. How do you know whom to believe? Obviously, the value of an industry analyst comes from his or her expertise in the subject matter, knowledge of a company's strategy, and familiarity with the management team. The Gartner analyst is someone who knows Novell well, attends our conferences, and meets with management. The Yankee analyst hasn't been in a briefing with Novell in roughly three years. You can see the difference. To you press out there, we have relationships with a wide range of industry analysts who know us well. If you're looking for commentary on Novell, we can provide a long list of analysts who follow Novell closely. I'd encourage you to tap these folks for future reference and avoid analysts whose perception of Novell is locked in a fairly distant past.By the way, Gartner and IDC have both posted initial assessments of the Hovsepian promotion on their web sites, available for a limited time to the public. IDC is here. Gartner is here.

Going Novell in Norway

Bruce Lowry — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 10:21:10 +0000

Novell's had a nice win with the Municipality of Baerum, one of Norway's largest local government districts, which is tapping a full range of Novell's products to deliver a better computing environment across its school system. Novell, the municipality, and local Novell partner Umoe IKT AS sat down last year to develop this solution – which involves the full range of Novell's Linux, identity and resource management offerings. Piloted initially in five schools, it's now being rolled out to all 40 schools in the municipality. Students will be able to tap Linux on the desktop, and administrators will secure and manage the system using Novell technology. This was big news in Norway, scoring a hit in the leading Norwegian daily and several TV blurbs. The public sector continues to be a driving force for Linux adoption.

Keeping in touch

Kevan Barney — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:02:22 +0000

Big management news day for Novell today, but I wanted to point out some good collaboration product news … GroupWise Mobile Server and GroupWise 7 SP1 are now available. See the news here, and check out more info on the GroupWise product page here.

High performance in the market data race

Kevan Barney — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:04:43 +0000

Interesting news on the financial services front, as Novell is working with Intel, Voltaire and Wombat to provide technology performance breakthroughs for customers in that industry. See the announcement here.As you can see on our Web site, leading financial groups worldwide have partnered with Novell to gain competitive advantage and grow in a dynamic market. Nine of the top 10 banks in North America rely on the high performance, scalability, flexibility, reliability and stability of Novell solutions. Collaborations like this one keep the innovation going.

Working Together for Tighter Security

Kerry Adorno — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:39:06 +0000

Removable storage devices are a handy way to store and transport data, but the convenience they offer can also be a security threat to companies if proper controls are not in place. To prevent the improper use of removable storage devices and applications by end users, Novell and SecureWave are working together to develop and enforce security policies. To this end, Novell will resell the SecureWave Sanctuary suite globally alongside Novell ZENworks, offering customers a consistent approach to identity, that can not only simplify the administration and management of security policies, but also reduce a company's overhead costs. This partnership will help companies further ensure compliance, enforce and audit application and device usage policies, and improve security on the desktop. To learn more check out the SecureWave press release

Guest Blog: The Bandit Project at Burton Catalyst

Kerry Adorno — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 15:37:08 +0000

Dale Olds, distinguished engineer at Novell shares his observations and experiences from this week's Burton Group Catalyst Conference.After the Bandit press interviews and announcement on Monday, I spent most of this week at the Catalyst conference in San Francisco. The whole experience has been a great validation and boost to the Bandit project. Some of the highlights of the last few weeks for me were to work with Sarah Mees — and to finally meet Bruce Lowry in person. As a technical guy, I don't get out much.Now I'm sitting in the last session at Catalyst. The conference has strongly affirmed the need and opportunity for Bandit. Many of the companies and individuals that gave supportive quotes in the Bandit announcement are here this week. I participated on a panel discussion with representatives from Higgins, IBM, Microsoft and Bandit/Novell. Not only did no one get hurt, but there was progress and many significant points of collaboration. There is very deep consensus that identity services must be interoperable, and we need to work together to build them. Novell's experience in identity systems such as eDirectory and Identity Manager, as well as our open source perspective and experience, give us a unique voice in the discussion. This has also been validated in hallway discussions, after hours, and in other presentations and panel discussions. We are seeing an explosion of interest in building a consistent set of identity services, and it is very clear that open source implementations such as Higgins and Bandit are key initiatives in this ecosystem.Next week I will be representing the Bandit project on a panel discussion at the Identity Mashup conference sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. And the Bandit project rolls on at http://bandit-project.org