'Quick' Novell Makes
Moves; Microsoft Lurks
Date: 4/6/99
Author: Lisa Wirthman
Novell Inc. is making the most of 1999. It's
shipping products ahead of schedule and
posting operating profits that analysts say
signal a comeback.
Novell says it's not focusing on Microsoft
Corp., its main rival in the market for
operating software used to run computer
networks. But Microsoft's Windows 2000
(formerly Windows NT), which competes
with Novell's NetWare, is getting closer to a
year-end launch.
Windows 2000 is slated to include
Microsoft's first network directory - a central
place to store information about users, files
and other objects on a network.
Last month, Novell unveiled the eighth
version of its directory, NDS, as well as a
slew of other products at its annual
Brainshare user conference. John Slitz, senior
vice president of global marketing, recently
gave Investor's Business Daily a progress
report.
IBD:
How has Novell been taking advantage of its
directory lead over Microsoft?
Slitz:
Microsoft had an opportunity, but they
needed to deliver a product to get into the
networking marketplace. We're there. We're
delivering a product, and it's all
standards-based. The obvious point is that
the market's not waiting for anybody. There's
never been a time in the history of technology
where ''snooze and lose'' was as big a threat
as it is today.
Microsoft is a great legacy desktop
company, and I think they'll ship a
general-purpose operating system. We have
a specialized one. The network is where it's
happening, and that's what our stuff does. So
I feel very confident that we're going to be
able to take advantage of the time that they
gave us.
IBD:
Do you consider them a directory
competitor?
Slitz:
When they ship a product, we'll see if it
stacks up. But the idea that they can talk
about something for four years without
delivering anything, it makes no sense to me.
We see our direction very clearly. We're not
responding to others. We're responding to
the opportunity that's before us to take the
network opportunity by the throat
immediately and shake it for all it's worth.
We've got 100% of our employees and
100% of our revenue aimed at that target and
that target alone. So other people can
respond to us.
IBD:
What's the importance of the directory
announcements you made at Brainshare?
Slitz:
The major new thing that we showed was
Digitalme. It takes the power of our directory
technology and puts a more human, personal
face on the way people can interact in a
network.
Digitalme is an individual identity that a
person controls. By identity, I mean various
information about you. In my case, it would
be my business telephone number, cell phone
number, e-mail address, physical address,
etc. All of those go into a profile. And I can
use pieces of that information for different
interactions I want on a network, so that
people know how to reach me and know
how I want to be reached. This is all shared
in a large flexible (network) directory, which
is NDS version 8.
IBD:
Who will use Digitalme?
Slitz:
There's a number of different ways that we
can ''productize'' this technology, and we just
haven't determined that yet. The central thing
is that it has to be held in a directory. We'll
be talking more in the next several months to
figure out how best to bring this technology
to market.
IBD:
Other firms, such as Microsoft, are working
on similar ideas. How long can you wait to
announce an actual product if you want
people to use your technology?
Slitz:
I think you wait until you get things right and
they work. We have a very strong belief at
Novell that we're not in the future business.
We're in the product business. And we want
to be sure of the products that we put into
the marketplace.
IBD:
You announced at Brainshare that NDS 8.0
can hold a billion network objects. How
does that benefit users?
Slitz:
The (billion-object directory) gives us the
ability to bring management and control of a
network to an entirely new level. It can list
each object in the network and its description
and location and so forth.
It also can begin to attack very large
problems for companies, like giving each
employee a single sign-on to the network.
Many people now have to individually sign
on to each of the systems they use within
their companies.
A directory that can (match) all of the
applications that you need with who you are
is absolutely critical. The problem that we've
had is that we ran out of space in the
directory. With a billion objects, we think we
have space to spare.
IBD:
What's the importance of the announcements
you make with some PC makers?
Slitz:
Our Internet caching announcements with
Compaq and Dell are a new area for Novell.
Caching basically means to move information
that gets used on a frequent basis into a part
of memory where it's more readily available.
Its like a turbocharger for the Internet. And
we've taken that and extracted it from
(NetWare), and put it into a black box that
just plugs into the network. And then the
network runs maybe 10 times faster.
Compaq and Dell are going to be selling the
caching product.
(C) Copyright 1999 Investors Business
Daily, Inc.
Metadata: NOVL MSFT CPQ DELL I/3574 I/3270
I/3572 E/IBD E/SN1 E/TECH
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
prflorio, thanks for the IBD heads up! Let me know if IBD posts anymore like this or related to MSFT Win2000. |
