Delay tries patience of Novell's partners

Novell will be forced to pay compensation to its partners if it further fails to meet its deadline for multivendor training services after releasing plans nearly a year ago.

A number of distributors and training companies paid out #8,000 to take on InfiLearning at Novell's education channel partner conference, Edge 97, last July.

The scheme was due to launch on 1 January. But businesses are still waiting for Novell's course, which aims to expand its Authorised Education Centres (NAECs) to offer training across a range of manufacturers, including Oracle and Sun.

Tracy Dolling, marketing manager at Interquad, said: 'Although the concept was good, we were dubious about taking it on. Novell had the wrong timescales.'

She said Interquad had converted its two centres to cater for InfiLearning: 'We received books and videos, but we are still waiting for the online training facilities.'

Julia Jones, director of training and education at Ilion, said: 'There is resentment because Novell has not delivered, and if it can't deliver then we and other companies should have our money back until it can.'

Dolling stated Novell had promised to deliver an online service in time for Edge 98, more than six months later than scheduled: 'Novell has said InfiLearning will be up and running by this time. If not, we will receive compensation.'

Ian Turner, managing director of training company Tower, confirmed that a meeting headed by Novell Europe had recently taken place to discuss the progress of InfiLearning.

He said: 'It was a very ambitious project, but we are monitoring this and we have already seen part of the online service.'

A source said: 'It is difficult for Novell Europe to deal directly with this as it is not closest to it. This is a US development.'

Novell was not available for comment.