Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Elmo Gregory who wrote (19738)	1/20/1998 11:38:00 PM
From: Jim McCormack	Respond to of 42771

All that Matters is LDAP.... We have really been over this whole NDS and Acitive Directory thing in great detail several thousand posts ago.... All that matters is that they both support LDAP and therefore have a "Meeting Point" for exchanging directory information. IBM has a directory of thier own too. It will support LDAP too. Yes - You will need a gateway type device to syncronize the different directory Architectectures be it IBM, MS or Novell - So What... Whoever programs best will eventually dominate - See Early E-Mail systems and protocols for reference..... All directory services meet at LDAP refrence model boundry in order to communicate syncoronize and exchange data. Remember all the email gateways? - well here we go again.... Look for all players to support LDAP. If you don't support LDAP you don't support the so called Internet RFC "Open" Standards. Only a company with enough software deployed that actually can use a directory service can put forth a proprietary scheme with LDAP support and make it stick and influence future LDAP revisions. Who has that kind of product mix? Microsoft has many of the "Core" tools and all the apllications and products that run on the network - and these applications and software are what a directory and management application are all about. What has Novell got - A proprietary standard and few popular products that they can code the NDS agents into beyond Netware - they are giving the NDS development stuff away and beg people to implement it into the software they write. You can't push a proprietary standard if you can't gain market momentum to have it widely adopted. Maybe they should pay people to support NDS. Another case of they ain't big enough important enough in the new world order. The Battle is IBM and MS if it is anybody. If IBM sides with Novell then NDS has a fighting chance. What about it Joe? I don't see it. MS will implement AD across the entire MS admin portfolio - From Database User profiles to MS Exchange to MS Office to MS BackOffice ,... Etc, ect, etc.... Remember the whole premise behind a directory is that I go ONE PLACE TO MANAGE USERS AND EQUIPMENT. I put all the security and access profiles into a master architecture and have all the applications look there for user charactoristics. In order for an apllication or device to participate they have to look to the DS for user info. Access has to be managed by the Directory Service admin tool. That takes hooks on the applications side to reach out and use the information in the Directory service. It take hooks to allow admin information to be set up and read from the DS. You have to cooperate. You have to embed code in your products to support a given DS. Now as a developer who you going to go with? Write lots of code for both MS and Novell - NOT! You will make a rational economic decision and write for MS - just like you did when you switched from NLMs on Novell to exe files on NT. For now if you got the cash you write for NDS but you know full well that AD support is a must as soon as it is released. Again, one place to detail database server access, one place to set up E-mail access, one place for Directory/File Acess, one place for Internet Access, printer access etc .... Now How you gonna do that from SYSCON? You will be able to do it very easily with MS "User Manager for AD Domains" Why - They produce much of the software you need on a network with NT, SQL Server, Exchange, SMS, etc... In short, by just unifying the MS products on a DS they will create yet another reasion to buy MS products - centralized management. Smart firms realize that if you have SQLServer vs the product they make and they can not be managed by MS Active Directory that a couple of points in the bid selection have gone to SQL Server. Who wants to set up user security on NT then set up database security on Oracle. If you can do both at once in the AD admin tool you are still in the game. It is the same for all competitors in the MS categories... You have to get into Active Directory to stay in the hunt... Novell can enjoy the NDS sales it gets today while they can get them. Make it while you can baby. I can not get on board with a strategy that calls for selling a product to a competitors installed base when the competitor will implement a strategy of thier own and no doubt give away a gateway to your product in the future. After AD comes out and MS releases a Directory Serices gateway to NDS who is going to implment NDS in anything other then Novell products? The vast majority of third party products will have native support for MS AD in them so NDS will be redundant. This Directory services stuff is still vaperware. Great concept. Who could argue against the concept. The degree of cooperation and integration required to make all those third party applications rely on a fading star's fortunes does not bode well for NDS. Why would you play ball with Novell when MS has annouced AD which you know you have little choice but to support it. To beat MS? - No one wastes time or money on that but the Goverment these days..... For MS however - because they can implement the DS management interface and agents across all of the products they produce the Active Directory Service may very well become a dominating charactoristic of network products. I still see years of using gateways between DS services - Heck I still got a couple of E-mail gateways today what with Profs and all. Anyway - just remember NDS for NT doesn't do squat as far as a true DS goes - unless you think a DS is about managing NT users with Syscon. MS hasn't even got acess to thier own apllications under the current domain admin model - switching to NDS is going to give you a DS on NT - Give me a break. Anyone who buys NDS for NT and thinks they got a DS is a fool. NDS for NT is 3% of the total DS package and has zero chance of evloving further into a tool to manage any MS apps as things stand today. MS wins again as the status quo will provail for now - proprietary solutions. Better hope DOJ breaks them up so they can't implement proprietary structures across the product line and declare them a "Standard" and force other to join up to stay on the NT platform. Only MS IMHO can make a DS a reality and they have very little motivation to actually do it. In fact with DOJ they may not want to do it at all as it shuts out competitiors products by its very nature. To Join the MS DS architecture means being managed by the MS DS Admin tools. For Now LDAP is the common ground - anything more can be viewed as anticompetitive for MS if not handled correctly. Expect LDAP for a couple of years and lots of gateways. The DOJ stuff has already set the network industry back as we will have to wait that much longer for a true DS now.... Only MS has the power to make a DS happen - Cheers Jim McCormack