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

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (34486)	10/29/2000 1:22:32 PM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello Paul, > Novell and Linux ... and Scott ... ;-) > Isn't it interesting to see Scott discovering Linux circa > October 2000. Paul, I have been following and working with Linux for years! But my observations and acceptance of it are more governed by when it can appeal to the masses ... not just hackers. Years ago when I started to play with it, I realized that you still had to be a technical person - a UNIX hack - to be extremely productive. I always use my "parent test" ... would my parents be able to install or use it ... I now see that Linux, especially the Redhat distribution, is becoming a very powerful solution for the "slightly above-average" person. There are now clean installation wizards, and numerous GUI applications for most purposes ... but it's still not there yet. The real thing that I saw was the increase in momentum even from RedHat 6 to 7 ... amazing. > Incidentally I have never, never been able to convince any > of my Linux friends to take even a passing look at > Netware. They will run Microsoft to play games but as for > Netware, forget it. Not even edirectory services separated > from Netware has any attraction. Interesting ... but that makes some sense. The UNIX/Linux community is very strong, and like you say they have to have a real motivating factor to drive them towards something new ... like games! ;-) > You can only wonder where Novell has been during the > entire Caldera Linux move. There has been a lot of effort to follow and be aware of what is occurring ... but I would speculate some questions on the potential revenue models, and the vision for where it fits. > As to Red Hat. What is important is not the notion Scott > has that somehow this is a worthy Linux to look into but > the simple fact that Red Hat has agreed to get involved in > promoting a Linux based eDirectory. Yes ... I am having a ton of fun working with eDirectory on Linux ... there are some incredibly powerful integration points. I'll hope to have some demonstrations in the next couple of weeks ... ;-) > The majority of the Linux community isn't on board any > particular directory system. It is up to Novell to > convince them that eDirectory is a better approach than > various LDAP schemes. That can only be done by opening up > the world of directory based apps to Linux programmers. Yep ... plus there is another key component ... and that is support and maintenance. I do not know of a corporation who is interested in hiring on their own Linux/Open Source software organization internally. Sure, some might do development, but I believe that there is a huge opportunity for companies in the "outsourced software development/support organization" business ... if you think about it, it's what we have been doing for years with NetWare ... > Should NDS be free on Linux? What method of open sourcing > works with directory technology? Would it be sufficient to > give away the directory tools and licensed binaries to get > people in the Linux world to develop on top of NDS? First, the development issue: They should develop to LDAP! eDirectory/NDS is full LDAP v3 compliant, and this is probably the most optimal protocol to write to. So this is not an issue for developers ... As for free or Open Source of eDirectory, I have a variety of feelings on this. I don't know if it's necessary, but I'm not sure that it matters. Customers are paying for support and enhancements ... so at the end of the day they would probably be paying the say money. They are going to want someone to call 24x7x365 when things go wrong ... ;-) > I don't know, but I think Novell has quite a bit of deep > thinking to do in this area. This is an area that I have been spending a lot of time on recently ... > What I see out there now in the Linux world is a bunch of > short sighted yahoos thinking that Novell going down > somehow means they are going up. Noone uses Linux over > Unix for corporate networks. I do believe that this is a confidence issue ... will it work for real, and who do we call if there are problems? > Similarly noone will use Linux over Novell. But defining > the niches in which Linux will be used over Unix or NT and > supporting thsoe niches is important to Novell's future. Novell currently provides a broad range of solutions for NetWare and Windows ... and is moving to UNIX and Linux. A corporate network will, IMHO, consist of piece of all of this. > Several years ago I posted here that promoting the use of > Linux workstations over NT was to Novell's advantage. > Today promoting the use of Linux applications (directory > enabled) servers may also be to Novell's advantage. So this comes back to my original point ... I don't believe that Linux is at the point of replacing Windows on desktops ... but I do not believe that it is very far off either. For a wide range of solutions it can be used today ... effectively ... but the server side? I believe that it is ready today ... > Can Novell figure out a way to do it? I'm working on it ... ;-) (P.S. Posting again from my Linux desktop ... ;-) Scott C. Lemon