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Novell Trails Pack In 'Net Commerce
(01/13/97; 10:50 a.m. EST)
By Sharon Fisher, Communications Week
Novell appears to be giving NetWare customers one more reason to defect.
Nearly a year ago, Novell forged a software licensing deal with Internet electronic commerce developer Open Market Inc. to build its secure storefront technology into NetWare. But Novell is late with the integrated offering and is still months away from even releasing it in beta, Commun-icationsWeek has learned.
By one IT executive's estimate, the delays put NetWare-with no industrial-strength electronic commerce options to speak of-as much as two years behind Unix and Microsoft's Windows NT in the highly strategic electronic commerce field.
"For our situation, they're about a year and a half late, maybe two years," said Bob Hilton, vice president of information technology for The Open University, Orlando, Fla., a multiple-company shop that has opted for Netscape Communications' Commerce Server running on Unix. "It's just too late for us."
Among the many other developers of commerce software for Unix are Open Market, IBM and America Online, Vienna, Va.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's Merchant Server for NT shipped on Dec. 1 with dozens of customers already in place.
Netscape also has electronic-commerce offerings for the NT platform.
Novell's catch-up position does not simply mark a potential missed opportunity for the company, users and analysts said. As more customers demand commerce applications and that functionality becomes as common as directory services in network operating systems, existing NetWare customers may begin to bolt.
The result could be NetWare remaining in its historical role as a file and print server.
"There's no question that they have not been able to articulate a fully formed intranet- server strategy," said Jamie Lewis, president of the Burton Group, a Midvale, Utah, consultancy. "If you look at Novell's primary competitors-Netscape, Microsoft, Lotus-all of them have articulated a much more fully formed story."
Novell has the additional problem of a lack of programming tools for writing electronic commerce applications, Lewis said. For users to take advantage of electronic commerce technology, "they need a robust application environment, and Novell doesn't have that right now," he said. "Even if they were to ship it, it isn't clear how developers would use it."
Novell did appear prepared to compete aggressively in this arena until recently. Last March, the company licensed the commerce technology from Open Market, Cambridge, Mass., and said it would build the technology into Web Server 3.0. But Web Server shipped in December without the functionality, and Novell at the time would not say when it would be added.
Novell is now "within a quarter of putting it out to beta," Stewart Nelson, vice president and general manager of the Novell applications division, said last week.
Nelson would not say why the software was delayed. Novell is not making wholesale changes to the technology, he said, and he denied that the recent dissolution of the Internet commerce division-a streamlining move by president and COO Joe Marengi-was a major factor.
"Obviously, when you re-evaluate the business, that has an effect. But it's not a big reason. We have accepted the code they've given to us, and we expect to get it ready to go very quickly," Nelson said. Novell has not taken any programmers off the project, he noted.
It is also not clear how Novell will market the technology when it is ready. When the Internet commerce division dissolved last fall, Web Server went to the IntranetWare division, while the electronic commerce software was brought under the aegis of the applications division, which also markets GroupWise.
Users said the reorganization again calls into question Novell's commitment to the Internet. "I'm not sure what signal it sends" to shut down the Internet commerce division, said Steve Lopez, a network manager at the National Board of Medical Examiners, Philadelphia.
Still, recent unrelated enhancements to Novell's Web Server have kept Lopez encouraged. The organization is now deciding between NetWare and Windows NT, and was impressed by Web Server 3.0, which includes support for Secure Sockets Layer encryption and direct links to Oracle databases.
"To be able to use Novell Directory Services for security and hook to an Oracle database for everything is very enticing," Lopez said. Other NetWare users agreed that electronic commerce promises to be critical to their business. "For us, it would be a tremendous benefit," said Steve Austin, MIS director for Helicopter Support Inc., Orange, Conn., which chose another solution for its electronic commerce needs. "I'm kind of surprised they haven't done it before." |
