Future of Novell

A new challenge for Microsoft? VMware, Attachmate eye Novell

It looks like a sale of Novell may be imminent. Not only that, it may be split up, with SUSE going to VMware and the rest to Attachmate. It will be interesting to see what happens to the certification programs. Will VMware and Attachment continue them as is, or rebrand them, or drop some or all of them completely? I've been thinking about doing the Linux certs, but I will hold off until there is some certainty about the future.

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varelg

I think the "Novell is for sale" thing has been going on a while now but nothing yet came through. That maybe tells something.
It was some investment fund, they dropped. Now it's VMWare. Before it was MS but due to antitrust concerns that dropped too.
If somebody blogged about it, it doesn't mean it will come through. What's for Novell in that situation? And for VMWare? Has VMWare had any involvement in Linux development?
Statistically, the prospect of buyout sends the value of the bought- out stock upwards. This is more of a bean- counters' scheme to pump the stock price than anything else. In this case it's Novell's stock.
Let's hope it won't be the Oracle- style takeover of Sun.

Turgon

Novell will hold. It's been around forever, has good products and a loyal fanbase. Rightly proud of my CNE. Novell was my first fileserver

MentholMoose

varelg wrote: »

If somebody blogged about it, it doesn't mean it will come through. What's for Novell in that situation? And for VMWare? Has VMWare had any involvement in Linux development?

There is a story in the WSJ, however it is subscription-only, so I linked a blog post that at least references the article. VMware recently inked a deal with SUSE so they definitely have an interest in it:
Suse Linux for VMware ships | Virtualization - InfoWorld

varelg

Of course they'll [Novell] have interest at selling more support subscriptions of SUSE, virtualized or not. And VMWare gets something like a middle- man cut, since it probably holds enough of the virtualization market share to be interesting not just for Novell.
WSJ isn't exactly novel to publishing speculations. What would motivate VMWare so much to hunt down Novell? ZENWorks maybe? Or maybe they really want to forray into the world of OS development?
Looking at how things went with Oracle's takeover of Sun, post- takeover can get ugly...

MentholMoose

It's unfortunate that the WSJ article is subscription-only. Anyway according to the article:

VMware is pursuing Novell's SUSE Linux operating system business, these people said. Attachmate Corp., a private-equity backed software company, could end up buying some or all of the remaining assets, including NetWare, Novell's network operating system.

So VMware is just after SUSE, at least according to the WSJ article. Also:

Analysts say the Linux business, which has tools for managing virtualized operating systems, will strengthen VMware's presence in cloud computing, a catch-all term for software and services accessed over the Web.

Owning SUSE could make their Linux-based appliance offerings more appealing, since for example the VM OS support would be in house, as could application support in some cases (such as Zimbra, which they recently bought), and of course it would run on their hypervisor. They can already sort of do that with their existing agreement with SUSE, but maybe owning the Linux distribution provider could further enhance their offering.

TheShadow

This should get you to the complete article and comments via CompTIA smartbriefs redirect.

http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/ymmIAliLkHdqsdsYambHBoalGIMm?format=standard

varelg

A random look at a CNBC show and a headline: Cisco should buy VMWare, followed by the name of the analyst that recommended it.
Future of VMWare- next topic?

Bl8ckr0uter

varelg wrote: »

A random look at a CNBC show and a headline: Cisco should buy VMWare, followed by the name of the analyst that recommended it.
Future of VMWare- next topic?

I wounder is they would buy EMC as well.

ssampier

I wish Novell the best, but they sunk themselves with some of their marketing decisions.

As for Cisco buying VMware, I'm just not seeing it. EMC already owns VMware. I couldn't see EMC wanting to be part of Cisco; that would be like Intel buying Microsoft or vice-versa.

Turgon wrote: »

Novell will hold. It's been around forever, has good products and a loyal fanbase. Rightly proud of my CNE. Novell was my first fileserver

How many diehards do they have left, I wonder? I read some complaints that Novell 'jumped the shark' when they moved to Linux. I honestly don't think they had much of a choice in the matter.

Turgon

ssampier wrote: »

I wish Novell the best, but they sunk themselves with some of their marketing decisions.

As for Cisco buying VMware, I'm just not seeing it. EMC already owns VMware. I couldn't see EMC wanting to be part of Cisco; that would be like Intel buying Microsoft or vice-versa.

How many diehards do they have left, I wonder? I read some complaints that Novell 'jumped the shark' when they moved to Linux. I honestly don't think they had much of a choice in the matter.

Anything can happen. There will be no more versions of Netware coming out. Netware is holding at version 6.5. The platform base was badly eroded by Microsoft NT Server in the late nineties and never recovered. Netware will be supported until 2015 I understand. It's future lies in the SuSE platform and the enterprise deployments. You will still find Novell at large shops, less so in the smaller ones where the rock solid single Novell server sites were replaced by the NT push. Most Novell environments are a mixture of Netware and AD these days with NDS often providing the file and print structure plus Zen works for admin, and MS offering things like SQL server and or Exchange. A good deal of Netware shops still use Groupwise for messaging as opposed to Exchange. The legacy Netware applications such as BorderManager (firewall) and Managewise (SNMP) have more or less fallen off the map although other security products have evolved.

Datacentre, storage and security are key areas for Novell's future and they continue to develop products.

If you read this link you will see how Netware's technical performance as a NOS still remains impressive.

Novell NetWare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chivalry1

I still see Novell as a viable player in the IT realm. However I dont see much more development going into some of the IT product line. E-Directory, Zen, and GroupWise are still strong solution that many companies are not going to let go.

Personally GroupWise and EDirectory are good Network Directory System (NDS) and email system for small to medium sized businesses. I would recommend this solution if a company did not have the finances to deploy Exchange or Active Directory.

The entire SUSE line and development will be around for years to come. Large corporation are chosen the Linux version over the over complicated RedHat. Whether Novell sells it off to another IT entity is still a question.

twodogs62

Oes2.... Sles 10 sp3 is running like a champ for me.
I support 20 Linux servers..... Very good performance and reliability.
I am starting to feel more comfortable with Linux. I had to work on windows server recently, and I thought ughhhhh. I needed to do something and it would have been easy from Linux.

petedude

From their CEO:

Dear Valued Novell Partner,
I am writing to let you know that today we announced that Novell has entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Attachmate Corporation would acquire Novell for $6.10 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $2.2 billion.
We believe this transaction is great news for our partners and customers. Novell has a long history of innovation and market leadership, and this tradition will be preserved and built upon by this transaction. We place tremendous importance on the relationships we've cultivated with our partners and I can assure you that working with you to meet and exceed our customers' expectations remains a top priority.
We can also assure you that the planned transaction with Attachmate Corporation does not alter our obligations to honor our contractual commitments to our customers and partners or the contractual commitments we've made under our PartnerNet program.
Novell also announced the sale of certain intellectual property assets to CPTN Holdings LLC. Customers will continue to be authorized to use Novell products under this intellectual property.
The transactions are currently expected to close in the first quarter of 2011. Until the merger transaction closes, it is business as usual. We have no plans to change your current partner representation or ordering practices. Our partner executive team will be contacting you to discuss our ongoing relationship and future plans. In the meantime, if you have any questions or wish to discuss this matter further, please feel free to contact your Novell partner executive.
We hope you share our enthusiasm about Novell's exciting future and we greatly appreciate your continued confidence and support.
Sincerely,

MentholMoose

Crazy stuff. CPTN Holdings is organized by Microsoft, so I wonder what IP they actually bought for $450M (the Unix copyrights?).
The End of the Penguin is Not Nigh | ITworld

varelg

So I was wrong about not believing Novell will sell. That "intelectual property rights sold to a consortium" part does look kinky though.

petedude

varelg wrote: »

So I was wrong about not believing Novell will sell. That "intelectual property rights sold to a consortium" part does look kinky though.

To say the least. I'm hoping the big N didn't sell anything 'nix related to those bad boys in Redmond. :O

Kasor

I just don't see much of Adv from Novell SUSE Linux or OSE..

They should hire me as their marketing supervisor at this region.

mattctr

Kasor wrote: »

I just don't see much of Adv from Novell SUSE Linux or OSE..
They should hire me as their marketing supervisor at this region.

Novell and marketing?

They lost the battle years ago.

Turgon

mattctr wrote: »

Novell and marketing? They lost the battle years ago.

Mores the pity as I like the products. My first file server a Netware 3.12 never let me down. Like a lot of technology companies that have a large established customer base, Novell got comfortable. They continued to target their wares at the backoffice technical operators and IT managers but forgot the masses. Microsoft targeted their products at executives and computer users hungry for a bright new experience on the desktop, application rich, internet enabled, workforce driven, mobile. At that time many were already experimenting at home with windows PCs and internet access, and mobile phones were on the cusp of going mainstream, laptops too. Today a laptop and mobile phone are not status symbols. Back then they were for senior managers only. When the managers booted the laptop they saw Windows. They read magazines and soaked up the adverts. Pretty soon any manager of any kind of department within an organisation was talking about Microsoft. They were not talking about Novell. Other than a client login window what did they know about that? They had a Windows operating system, they had Windows applications like MS Office. They wanted Outlook not Groupwise. Novell had no relational database offering, MS had SQL server.

Groupwise worked, Exchange had problems, Netware file servers stayed up, NT servers fell over. Zen was good. SMS sucked. Microsoft were miles behind Netware on NDS before Microsoft decided to do Active Directory badly. Netware had the advantage of timeserved engineers supporting it. Microsoft didn't. But none of that mattered in the long run.

One can argue if NT 4.0 delivered on the promise all day but that isn't important. What is important is that if enough non IT people within an organisation want something, even if they dont understand it, they most likely will get it, particularly if the commercially focused managers and executives want the toys and perceived benefits to the company in terms of efficiency and application integration.

Kasor

There is no future for Novell. I didn't see much going for the past few years. My previous move from Novell NetWare to OES which linux base. Very difficult to implement and integrate with Windows, and very difficult to troubleshoot, too. You really have to go to the Novell seminar to learn all the detail. It's not cost effective. Anyway,... Goodbye Novell. You will be miss.

wes allen

More of a spin off - but I have read pretty good reviews - https://www.netiq.com/