Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy?

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To: Jim McCormack who wrote (20665)	3/5/1998 12:09:00 AM
From: ToySoldier	Read Replies (4) of 42771

Aparently you must not be to familiar with the Novell product lines nor their positions in the marketplace, or, you want to suck people like me in to counter your Novell Bashing statements. But I had to respond to a couple of your questions/statements with my opinions to the best of my knowledge. (Warning - might be a bit technical at times) The key strategy of Novell's product lines are finally being realized. NDS (Novell Directory Services) is tying all their products (and a growing number of 3rd party developers) together to provide a single point of administration. For any organization of any size - TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is a major factor to be addressed. To be able to manage and control all corporate object information and computing resources under one directory has huge benefits that our Novell-centric clients are now beginning to realize. No other Novell competitor has this level of Directory enabled harmonization. As a Networked Systems Integrator/Consultant for several years, I have installed a lot of networks and networked applications. I have installed both NT and NetWare software. I have also had many discussions with countless support and System Integration staff. The general agreement is that even older Netware (3.x) enviornments are far more mature and superior in performance than any NT network. Unfortunately, Novell truly does suffer the symptoms of the "Rodney Dangerfield" syndrome - it gets no respect! The media is in love with Microsoft's Marketing Sledgehammer. BorderManager: I have already installed BorderManger for 3 client environments. This is a great product for its maiden voyage. The caching capabilities and its integration into NDS are untouchable in the industry. So I'd like to know how you came to the conclusion that BorderManager wasn't huge. Its a great product for version 1. GroupWise. Please explain what you mean by "pathetic". Groupwise is second only to Notes in the seats installed marketshare. With its NDS integration, GroupWise is a Must-Have No-Brainer for any NetWare-centric shop. Again, NDS integration is the key to its fame. NetWare 5. Although the current version of NetWare provides all the built-in features and services to easily provide an enterprise file/print infrastructure (of which many of those enterprise features are not available in NT), NetWare 5 will address two major issues that have plagued Novell by industry critics. 1) Replacing the default IPX transport with native TCP/IP transport services access between client and the server (even NT is not native TCP/IP - they wrap NetBios with an IP wrapper). 2) An easier application development platform to encourage developers to seriously consider NetWare as an Application Server. This will be accomplished by the Java platform and some changes to the kernel to address pre-emptive multi-tasking (a stated desire by many developers that current NetWare does not support). There are also many other features in this release - but these are the critical ones I would select. NT 5 cannot even be compared to NetWare 5 in either performance or capabilities. first of all, most industry analysts are predicting that NT 5 won't even be available until 1999. Even when it is released, it is guessed that MAD (Microsoft Active Directory) may not be part of the first release. Based on Microsoft MAD white paper information - MAD is only a clean-up upgrade of their current Domains concept. This simply pales in comparison to the robust capabilities of even the current version of NDS. In the past 2 years, Novell has had to have their real enterprise solutions compete with Microsoft's vaporware and marketing power. I have predicted for a year now that if Novell follows through with their focus on Directory enabling their complete product lines and delivers true Internet services - Novell will return to a strong level of industry respect. With direct cudos to Eric S., Novell is finally arriving on the other side of the dark valley. I truly believe that what we are seeing on the stock market is tangible evedence of Novell's arrival. Novell's product line capabilities now have the ability to counter the "Rodney Dangerfield" syndrome inflicted on it by its main competitor and the industry press. I will now step off my soapbox now. ToySoldier

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