PARIS -- Novell is in negotiations with Sun Microsystems to provide directory
services for the much-heralded Jini platform, according to Novell's
Christopher Stone, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development.
"What Jini needs is a directory," said Stone on Tuesday, at International Data
Corp.'s European IT Forum here. "We are working with some to have NDS
[Novell Directory Services] become the directory service for Jini."
Jini is an API, which Sun says will make it easier for developers to build
distributed networks and which will allow any device connected to a network to
be represented by a software object. Jini also provides the way to label and find
those objects.
What this means is that devices such as cameras, printers, PCs, or palm
computers will be able to be plugged into a network. A directory service would
allow the network to register the device and automatically configure it for the
network.
Novell's chief operating officer, Eric Schmidt, came from Sun, where he served
as chief technology officer and helped to promote Java. And the recent
addition of Sun co-founder Bill Joy to Novell's management board may indicate a
closer alliance between the two companies. Joy is one of the principal
architects of the Jini platform.
Despite what may be a cozy relationship between Sun and Novell, Stone said that
Novell is also in discussions with Microsoft about providing its directory
to Microsoft's Millenium project, likely to be a direct competitor with Sun's Jini.
Novell Inc., in Provo, Utah, is at novell.com. Sun Microsystems
Inc., in Mountain View, Calif., is at sun.com.
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