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

To: ToySoldier who wrote (29827)	1/6/2000 11:27:00 AM
From: Loring	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Toy, we have heard a lot of negatives on AD, but in trying to get a better perspective on W2K as a potent competitor, I don't understand how bad the OS could be if 750,000 beta testers have been playing with it? Wouldn't we have heard a giant guffaw if it was as bad as most of the MS bashers would have us believe? Even the MS FUD machine couldn't cover that much up! What's the story, in your opinion?

To: ToySoldier who wrote (29827)	1/6/2000 11:35:00 AM
From: PJ Strifas	Respond to of 42771

<OT> Not that I'm hawking anyone's book but to get an insight into what it takes to make the "leap of faith" to Active Directory, there's a great book to read. This book mostly deals with current NT 4.0 networks only, it doesn't get into depth on migrating from other (read Novell) networks. When you get through this book you'll understand why :) amazon.com "Planning for Windows 2000" Synopsis Written by members of the Windows NT 5 Rapid Deployment Program, this book speaks to the professional network administrator who is charged with planning, testing and deploying the upcoming release of Windows NT Server 5 in their enterprise. From the initial preparation steps to an eventual deployment, a step-by-step examination of crucial elements will be discussed. I don't mean to insinuate that Active Directory should be dismissed outright as a "competitor" to NDS. There are more than a few people out there that just want to be on that MSFT bandwagon. That ideal has paid off rather well for most companies (from developers on to end-users) in the past and most people are merely making it a given in this new upcoming release of the new OS. The problem with Active Directory is when it doesn't work, what will companies do? How much downtime is acceptable? How much administrative overhead will companies bear before they realize the effort doesn't equate? The "wait and see" attitude that most companies have used in the past with MSFT products will not hold in the face of stiff competition from Novell, Sun and IBM. The directory space can not be compared with applications or desktop OSes. There is a vast difference. MSFT's marketing machine will have to work triple overtime to change that message into "it's just a directory and our's is good enough". Good enough can't cut it when you're attaching mission-critical systems, applications & resources to the directory. It's one thing when a secretary can't type out a letter correctly formatted because the app doesn't support some function or a employee needs to reboot a workstation because IE just crashed it. It's quite another thing when your back-end systems are tied to your front-ends through middle tier software packages via a directory! The Directory is a foundation on which to build a distributed network system that intelligently manages relationships between resources. (resources are defined as users, computers, services, peripherials, back-end systems and more than I can think of now). If your foundation is "good enough" will you be satisfied with that? That's a hell of a message to sell - if they succeed . . . . WOW - I can't imagine it. Peter J Strifas