Jack, you wanted something on TCP/IP. Here's something (and more <g>)
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NetWhat?
By Loring Wirbel
The demise of IPX/SPX protocols was visible by the early 1990s, long before Bob Frankenberg joined Big Red in Provo. Even before Intranet crazes moved into warp mode, the internetworking folks who talked about "one-armed routers" just assumed that a reference to single protocols meant TCP/IP. IPX was one of those arcane but useful also-rans, like AppleTalk or DECnet.
The dry rot began to be obvious some time in late 1994, as users waited for the System Fault Tolerance features to be added to NetWare 4.x. Somewhere in the middle of Microsoft's "take no prisoners"
marketing campaign for Windows NT Advanced Server, the issue for MIS and network management shrank to whether networks would rely on Unix or Windows NT.
By late 1995, developers in Internet server arenas were saying that NetWare no longer was on anyone's radar screens.
Frankenberg, of course, has to take the blame for the two years of running in place, while long-time Novell chairman Ray Noorda walks away clean. Sure, Novell would not have emerged as a network operating system leader without Noorda's help, but it also never would have succumbed to delusions of grandeur, which Noorda suffered as he chased Bill Gates in a pointless battle for desktop
hearts and minds.
It also clearly was Noorda that created a mindless sense of drift in Provo, an atmosphere in which Sheldon Laube, in his temporary stint as chief technology officer, seemed to be the only Novell executive in five years with any sense of vision (not counting Radia Perlman, who always seemed like a sane voice in the wilderness)
Now, of course, everyone is on the Novell death watch-as silly as counting the seconds until the demise of Apple-or they're wondering if the company will be niched into vertical near-oblivion, matching
the fate of Banyan Systems' Vines. Novell is unlikely to suffer either fate, but its problems are massive, and pontificating from John Young and Joe Marengi ain't going to do much to quell NetWare users' concerns.
Of course, Marengi is correct in saying that Novell has to market its network operating system (NOS) aggressively. What a concept. Of course the company must quickly bring its "Moab" project for a
native TCP/IP NetWare implementation to market as quickly as possible. Necessary ideas, but hardly sufficient.
Laube had been on the right track in splitting apart the former grandiose "SuperNOS" strategy into a set of modules, taking advantage of key NetWare features like directory services. The trick now is to be humble and aggressive at the same time.
Novell could look to Tucson, at peer-to-peer network operating system leader Artisoft Inc., for how to conduct itself in the future. Artisoft knew how to expand businesses through clever alliances and
acquisitions, moving into embedded markets outside workgroup NOS's. But it never tried to pretend it would be the next Microsoft.
Novell does not have to consign NetWare to oblivion, particularly with the number of user complaints on Windows NT that are beginning to arise. But it has to structure NetWare features based on the shifts in topology its customers are making, and it must respond quickly to the rise of new Intranet features, such as Web-based network management based on Corba or Java.
The trick is to be there at the right time and place with the right networked services, without promising to be all things to all people. Marengi and Young have a lot of damage to undo, and most of it predates Frankenberg's tenure.
Copyright * 1996 CMP Media Inc.
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Joe.. <interesting article Jack, but I think you want to know what Novell is going to do about it, right? Hmm.. maybe someone from Novell reading this thread can answer?> |
