FTP renews bid to win Euro share from Novell

FTP Software, the self-proclaimed pioneer of TCP/IP networking, which acquired Firefox Communications last year, is relaunching itself in the European market and renewing its attack on Novell.

The company will announce a consolidation of its distribution channels before the end of Q1, having decided that the merged UK distributor base for Firefox and FTP products was too unfocused. ?We?re committed to the two-tier channel model and we?ll be putting a lot of marketing resource into the consolidated distributor base and our resellers,? said UK marketing director Vincent James.

FTP will also be putting more resources into new variants of its Virtual IP (VIP) Internet Gateway products for Netware and Windows NT systems this year. An initial VIP Internet gateway for the Netware market, aimed at helping Novell users migrate to IP-based Internet and intranet services, failed to throw Novell off balance when it shipped last year. Now that Novell?s grip on the market is looking less secure, FTP thinks it may be in with a fighting chance in 1997.

?Novell doesn?t understand IP like we do,? said James. ?With Intranetware they?re grafting the IP network on to IPX and the two don?t match. They?re at least a year away from shipping a full TCP/IP implementation. We?ve got a big lead on them.?

FTP Software?s VIP range includes client and server for the IP infrastructure, with a range of Java-based agent applications sitting on top. ?Agents are the only way to implement software security, directory services, communications and management over the whole IP network,? claimed James.

?Our software solves a range of problems that are not addressed by LDAP, tunnelling protocols, firewalls and point solutions.?

FTP said it will launch VIP secure clients for W95, NT and 3.x by the end of the first half of 1997.