About << Is Novell aware of the challenge lying ahead? >>
Salah, the challenge is now ... not lying ahead. Notice how MSFT is getting press for this Networking 'development in progress' ... while, at least until now ... Novell has actually solved these type of problems and tried to keep it a secret until the work was done ... I think they called this 'stealth mode'.
I don't think the current Novell Management 'wants to see' the challenge from MSFT ... they seem to be pretending that MSFT doesn't really mean to take their customers away from them ... I'm astonished!
Novell Management behaviour is almost like something out of Alice in Wonderland ... maybe they have the role of the oysters, while MSFT gets to be the Walrus ??? I haven't seen them do anything yet that demonstrates they are taking the MSFT threat to themselves seriously ... at least in their Marketing efforts ... Novell's Engineering group is quite another story though, and they've done exceptional work.
Key points that nobody important seems to focus on ... Novell has the problems solved now, Novell's technology lets customers use whatever Servers they already have, and whatever kind they want to buy in the future. MSFT is targeting it's solutions for (ONLY) NT 5.0 ... and IMHO will have some significant patching to do, as well as some of the function shipping late ... AND, will pretty much force users to migrate all of their servers to NT to get much of the benefit from an NT Networking solution ... this is going to be a much bigger problem for users than almost anyone believes. Not to mention serious problems with scalability, reliability, security, availability, serviceability ... wonder how MSFT will solve those ... in the future.
Novell already did this work ... I sure wish more people knew! Especially potential customers, investment analysts, ... stealth mode is good for keeping secrets, but not so good for software companies that want to sell their software to millions of customers. But, there is good reason to believe that Novell will eventually prevail ... after they change their approach to the market ... assuming they do it soon!
Here are some points to ponder:
Over 100 Billion Lines of COBOL code in Mainframes already running that can be made available as Server code ... does anyone really think that it will be an easy (or quick) migration? Programmer productivity for COBOL was about 2 thousand Lines of Code (KLOC) Per Person Year about 20 years ago ... new tools & techniques have it up to about 20 KLOC / PY now. About 70% of all programmers time is now used for maintenance of old programs ... the remaining 80% (I know ... 150%) will be used to sort out all of the re-work and testing required to solve the Y2K problems from now until about Dec 1999 ... there is almost no capability to 'convert & migrate' older applications to new platfroms.
Novell, Sun & IBM are co-operating with Java to extend the useful life of these applications ... MSFT is trying to try to get customers to convert & migrate to NT platforms ... when the Customers figure this out, the bulk of their commitment of money & time will go to extending existing systems ... not replacing them so they can run (exclusively) NT Servers.
I'm still betting on 'real Java' from Sun, IBM, and Novell ... I don't think MSFT is going to win this one. As soon as the CIOs figure out how much it will really cost to implement the 'NT solution' ... and how many PYs it will take ... Novell (and IBM) is going to look real good to them ... all we have to do is to get Novell to start selling to them now, before they 'buy' MSFT's 'bait' ... the CIOs have to know about the Novell alternative >>BEFORE<< they make any 'career size' Network commitments to 'NT solutions' ... because, once they commit themselves they'll have to see their decision through, or risk losing their jobs ... the time is now! Novell can't afford to waste any more time. |
