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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (27231)	6/25/1999 9:54:00 AM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 42771

Novell opens Netware scope ahead of push by big rivals Threatened by rivals such as Microsoft and Linux in the market for corporate operating systems, Novell is continuing to embrace its rivals. The company, best-known for its Netware operating system, is creating versions of its flagship network management software, NDS 8, for Linux, Windows NT and Sun Microsystems' Solaris. NDS 8 was available only for Novell's Netware but that would change soon, said Scott Yeh, market development manager of Greater China for Novell. NDS 8 manages information about all users of a network. It complies with an industry protocol called lightweight data access protocol (Ldap). Ldap bundles all the information the network has to know about each individual user into a packet of data, which is stored and processed on a single platform. Applications can go into this directory and search for any information on the user. With this, networks know which machines, which application, and which information a user can access. It also lets companies to know who the user is, what the user is doing, and when it is being operated. "Every major vendor has adopted Ldap as the directory-access standard and is tracking changes to the specification with each product release," a report from US analyst company, Burton Group, said. The ability to share data between servers - each running different operating systems - remains a stumbling block for Ldap. Novell's older NDS 5 can run only on Netware. In the Microsoft/Cisco camp, Active Directory caters only for Windows NT. Netscape's Mission Control runs mainly on Unix systems. "Most companies are using different servers within the same network," said Mr Yeh. "This makes organisation difficult. If you changed user information on your Unix server, you still have to go to your NT server to change." Microsoft is expected to release Active Directory bundled as part of Windows 2000, which could help it crush competition in the directory-program market, at least in Windows. By releasing NDS 8 on multiple operating systems later this year - before the expected release of Windows 2000 - Novell hopes to grab the market. Other giants are looming as well, with IBM planning to use Ldap in all software. The Aberdeen Group, another US consultancy, said: "It will clearly take time before all IBM products fully embrace the Ldap model, even though Ldap is a central component of IBM's eBusiness Architecture". Mr Yeh said: "The new NDS 8 can store and manage up to a billion users." With this volume, Novell also is forging into the Internet business by making NDS 8 for Solaris. There are two markets for Ldap - intranets for a corporation's internal users, and extranets, to manage information about a company's on-line partners and suppliers. In the intranet market, Novell leads because of its early entry and commitment to Ldap. In the extranet world, however, Netscape is top, as it was Netscape which used Ldap to build its system a few years ago, and it has gathered an array of Web-centric application software.

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (27231)	6/25/1999 12:25:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

This is a very interesting website to check out....it almost sounds like a digitalme portal but I haven't found any mention of digitame anyplace.... zcentral.com By the way, I just signed up for a free membership - PJStrifas is my "handle" so look me up. PJ Strifas

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (27231)	6/25/1999 1:11:00 PM
From: Paul Fiondella	Respond to of 42771

One comment I think they are more focused on growing the new rather than pruning the old. It's a different emphasis and involves a lot less negative energy and much more positive results. I'll give you an analogy. If I walk into my local Town Hall and say to the assessor that their Wang system (soon to blow up Y2k wise) could be replaced by an Oracle database NDS enabled through a Netware server connected to an intranet with DB updates and entries and reports quickly programmed in JAVA, what kind of enthusiastic response do you think I'm going to get? They have reports to get out now, etc. etc. The negative solution is to battle for a government (company) wide decision to replace the system (and wait years). The positive solution is find some sympathetic executive (official) with some resources to commit to build a proof of concept system (and make it work). The new Novell is a place where these positive solutions get resources and become products. And talented people (of which Novell has MANY) get pretty excited about that. ---so do stockholders! With digitalme the company is on the verge of something possibly as big for the internet as the appearance of the HTML enabled browser.