Netware wades deep in enterprise waters

Networking NDS services hold the key to Novell revival plan.

Ailing network developer Novell is using the release of network operating system (NOS) Netware 5, as its first push into the internet market as well as a springboard to get into the enterprise sector.

Netware has traditionally been sold to manage local area networks in the departmental and small to medium-sized business sectors, but Novell has been broadening the product over the past year. In particular, it hopes for wide corporate uptake of its Netware Directory Services (NDS), which would make it widely accepted.

Chris Stone, executive vice president of corporate strategy at Novell, said: 'The idea is that he who owns the infrastructure wins the game - and the same applies to he who owns the most identity.'

He added: 'Everyone loves a leader and everyone will want to buy Netware if NDS becomes ubiquitous, which is why we're talking to the likes of IBM and Compaq about including directory services in their products. We're right at the beginning of a cycle. It generally takes 10 years to do something like this and we're three to four years into it.'

Directory services provide the enabling technology for network administrators to manage their configurations and applications from a centralised point.

They also act as a data store for user information, so individuals can access their own customised desktops either from within the enterprise or remotely by means of user ID.

With Netware 5, which started shipping last week, Novell is also bundling a starter pack, Zen.works, to enable users to use NDS' functionality.

The desktop management suite is the first of a family of applications, tools and utilities and is being used as the primary sales pitch to show users what they can use directory services for. It also provides them with a graphical front end to administer remote workstations, manage packages, distribute and install software across the enterprise and undertake remote diagnostics and repair work. The software, which is due to ship in the third quarter, will also come with a Java-based interface to make it easier to use.

Sheri Anderson, chief information officer at Novell, said there would be no Netware 6 because the vendor planned to take a more modular approach to development.

Eric Schmidt, president and chief executive of Novell, commented: 'Netware 5 is not the end of something, but the start of our new positioning based on directory services. There is a new model of computing emerging and a directory-centric world changes the power structure and who the players are.

'The internet is the start of a very good thing. It's creating a market for an 'always aware, always on' network and it's changing the way we build applications. But we need a strategy to bring order to the chaos and we need to be able to find things, which makes the notion of identity very important.'

Schmidt added that Netware 5 had rectified a key user complaint - that the internet was only accessible via gateways. The NOS is now based on IP as the default protocol rather than the traditional IPX and SPX local area network protocols. As a result, internet support should significantly boost sales, he claimed.

But to improve the product's distributed capabilities, Novell also plans to invest in Objectstar. The technology will be included in future releases of Netware and enable NDS objects to communicate with each other in a non-hierarchical way by means of the Visigenics object request broker embedded in the NOS. This will make it easier for NDS-based applications and objects to interact with each other over the internet.

However, the vendor is also positioning Netware 5 as a Java enterprise application server and has integrated a Java Runtime Environment for Windows 95 and NT into the product. This includes a Java Virtual Machine, a just-in-time compiler and Java class libraries.

Stone added: 'The real reason for including Java support is to try to get developers back to the platform. Novell was asleep for a long time when it came to trying to attract developers, but we now have 200 Java applications that have been tested and run and we have quadrupled our developer relations group.

'We're also attempting to push further into the enterprise and it's the fastest growing part of the business. We generated 35 per cent of our revenues in this area last year and we're aiming for 50 per cent this year.'

As a result, Novell is negotiating with most of the enterprise resource planning vendors, such as SAP to integrate NDS, with their applications, in an attempt to boost Netware's presence in this crucial enterprise space.

In addition, the vendor has reorganised itself internally to move to a sales model based more on direct sales and the internet, and is building up its consulting division, which is currently very small, to help large corporates implement NDS across the organisation and provide them with support services. To try to boost its low profile in this sector, it is also about to embark on a series of advertising campaigns and plans to host a worldwide Directory Days tour in October in an attempt to educate the market on the benefits of directory services.