We've been working with Honeywell for a while now, and this identity
assurance solution that's being demoed at TechSec is one of things we
have been able to accomplish. Linking physical and logical access is
critical for today's enterprise organizations and Honeywell and Novell
are working hard to provide practical solutions.

Dell's IdeaStorm site is certainly generating what its name implies, and we're happy to see the top ideas involve pre-installed desktop Linux. You've probably already written or read stories about it, like these in BusinessWeek, Computerworld and DesktopLinux.com.

And Dell's responding, posting an update on Linux options, specifically mentioning "We are listening, and as a result, we are working with Novell to certify our corporate client products for Linux …" We are indeed working with Dell to make it as simple as possible for customers to acquire and use the top enterprise Linux desktop available … yes, that's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10.

The certification was received from the respected National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme (CCEVS) Validation Body. CCEVS evaluates IT products for conformance to the International Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation. The rigorous process includes evaluation for various features, such as development environment, security functionality, the handling of security vulnerabilities, security‑related documentation and product testing.

For customers, the good news is that Common Criteria offers a standardized way of expressing security requirements, making it easier to evaluate the quality of security products. For security vendors, Common Criteria is good because it is widely accepted as a "seal‑of‑approval" for mission‑critical software by US and international IT professionals, government agencies, enterprise and other business customers.

Achieving Common Criteria is just one more proof point that Sentinel's global customers are purchasing a high‑quality event management solution.

That announcement was just one of several cool bits of news this week with partners. We put out another release Monday with Intel about virtualizing Windows2000/2003/XP Server unmodified on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 via Xen. Today we unveiled some new workgroup teaming and real-time collaboration work we're doing with SiteScape. In addition, IBM put out a couple of announcements today involving Novell, one on the Integrated Stack for SUSE Linux Enterprise running on IBM System p servers, and another about work Novell, AMD and IBM are doing together around IBM's Informyx Dynamic Server (codename "Cheetah"). This latter will combine IDS Cheetah, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and IBM xSeries 3105 servers, running on AMD Opteron 1000 Series processors, for an small/medium sized business solution focused on security and high availability.

Five announcements in three days involving Novell's work with IBM, Microsoft, Intel, AMD and SiteScape… That's nice cross-platform industry validation for Novell's offerings. It's good to have friends..

Lupi's list of keys for successful corporate blogging started with passion for the subject, talking to people (not 'consumers'), and being credible. While this blog may not always exhibit the flair of other blogs (hey, we're still PR folks operating within a public company environment!), we do believe in what we're doing, and we certainly are striving for openness and credibility. Based on conversations in the room last night, it sounds to me like Novell is still relatively forward leaning on the blogging front relative to many other companies, with our combination of two executive blogs (our CMO and CTO), this OpenPR blog, and a series of product focused blogs on our Cool Blogs site. Not that we can't do better, but we're out there.

One of my hopes for 2007 is that we can engage folks more on interaction with this blog. The burden is on us to come up with interesting topics. With everything that's moving in our markets, that shouldn't be too hard.

1. The Free Software Foundation has never threatened to try to ban Novell, or anyone else, from shipping Linux. The FSF has expressed that it doesn't much like the Novell-Microsoft agreement, and that the next version of the GPL3 may try to address some of the the issues raised by the agreement. But Richard Stallman of the FSF has publicly said there's no violation of the GPL2.
2. SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 is a shipping product, and it includes pieces licensed under GPL2. We'll continue to be able to ship, maintain, secure, and patch those pieces of the product under the terms of GPL2. There is no reason for customers not to deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise 10.
3. The GPL 3 process is ongoing. Novell continues to participate in discussions with the FSF and the other vendors involved in the process. We are not prepared to pronounce on possible outcomes to that process, and what they mean for SUSE Linux. That would be pure speculation at this stage, and would only serve to muddy the waters. When GPL3 is finalized and made public, we'll assess it and determine our actions at that point. Given the likelihood that a number of projects will continue to be licensed under GPL2, and not go to GPL3, most vendors involved in open source will be facing similar assessments.

We are, and will remain, big fans of Linux. Our agreement with Microsoft is designed to promote Linux adoption by new customers, not divide the Linux community.

According to the Info Security Products Guide Managing editor Rake Narang, “Vendors that are building their success strategy on the 4Ps are the ones that are best positioned to keep your digital resources secured in 2007.” We're forced to agree with Rake.

Building on recent news, like this week's significant milestone achieved with the Bandit and Eclipse Higgins projects, this is just one more proof point that Novell's identity and security solutions continue their forward momentum…