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

To: ToySoldier who wrote (20923)	3/10/1998 2:54:00 AM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

TS (It is tough to be serious writing a message to ToySoldier), appreciate the info on Novonyx...but I believe we basically understood these vague details. The question is specific to the financial arrangements of all these transactions. I'd welcome input from anyone on this? To me the Novonyx situation is very odd, and I don't understand why Novell insists that the products, ownership and financial details remain a mysterious secret. I take it from the press release that this change is costing shareholders more money? Out of curiosity, do you know if the lawsuit was ever resolved, and whether or not the Timpanogas group is or will be residing on Novell grounds. regards, sf

To: ToySoldier who wrote (20923)	3/10/1998 10:34:00 AM
From: Kevin Millecam	Respond to of 42771

ToySoldier; >>From my understanding, no [Novonyx] ported products have yet been openly released but trial versions are available. If you want to know all about Novonyx, you can go to their site ...<< A number of great products from the Novonyx deal are shipping today. You can read about them here: Netscape Enterprise Pro Server for NetWare novell.com Netscape Enterprise Server for NetWare novell.com Netscape FastTrack Server for NetWare novell.com Netscape Messaging Server for NetWare novell.com Regards, Kevin

To: ToySoldier who wrote (20923)	3/11/1998 9:14:00 PM
From: Jim McCormack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Repost: for Toy Soldier and Scott Lemon This is a repost of a recent posting regarding Novell and Java Application Server... I don't know if you read it already but I would like to discuss the subject as I agree that at BrainShare the key topic will be Java development and "N" tiered architectures using Netware 5.0.... REPOST: "I propose to relate very quickly how Java Application Servers fit into the computing infrastructure. You know - how we have gone beyond client server two tiered computing to "N" tiered Web server based computing. That is of course if I can figure out how to explain it in writing. This is important because this is what NT 5.0 and Netware 5.0 are all about - COBRA vs DCOM. Javabeans vs Active X These two schools of thought use different tools to provide essentially the same distributed computing object oriented model. (We can do DCOM vs COBRA in-depth in another post if you like) What it means is that "Multi-tiered Architectures" replace traditional two tiered Client server Architectures. Used to be you put the business logic and GUI on the client and the database on the server - two tiered. Today we split the GUI, Business logic, and database. The middle tier is now housed on the Application Server. You add multiple Application Servers to keep performance robust when you serve large numbers of clients. To update the Application logic you update the Application server(s) code rather then the code on the workstations. As intranet and internets are deployed Thin clients (Browsers) interact with Web servers which in turn interact with Application Servers which interact with Database servers. Multi-tier! This new architecture is possible because: #1: We now have a "Web Top" - The Web Browser has been enhanced with with Java and Active X support and now can compete with a traditional GUI (Windows) application front end. #2: Middleware written in C++ was developed to connect the Java and ActiveX frontends to database and application server backends. We can attach applications running on a Web server to a database server. #3 The C++ middleware was replaced by ActiveX and Java server-side systems addressing issues of performance and scalability. We can now do the connetions between Web servers and databases so that many users can be supported. So whats this mean - It means if you don't run the facilities to implement an Applications Server you won't sell much server software in the future. Applications development is changing. Remember the revolution that happened when "Drivers" were implemented for hardware? All of the sudden you could use any Ethernet card you wanted with Netware and as long as you had the right driver. A layer of abstraction was added that allowed applications to request services from Netware which dealt with the driver and thus the hardware. The abstraction model has come to software development. Now a certain set of services is defined for software applications (COBRA and DCOM Specs detail these) that allow for a new paradigm for development. Without getting into details you have to trust me here - people are moving to the new paradigm and they want DCOM or COBRA services for the future products they write. Netware delivers the COBRA spec in Netware 5.0 and NT is delivering DCOM on the NT platform. The irony is that Netware 5.0 doesn't compete with NT anymore - it competes with a whole new set of players. NT implements DCOM and Netware COBRA. Both specs compete for developers but after a developer chooses COBRA then it is a whole new fight for Netware. After Netware 5.0 you can forget about NT. It is a new battle. File and Print Services are not the growth market - Application Servers are! Here is a short list on Netware 5.0 competitors Apptivity by Progress Software Kiva Enterprise Server by Netscape NetDynamics by NetDynamics Silverstream by Silverstream Tengah by Weblogic Fresco by Infoscape More later - check these products and companies out and focus on them and not Microsoft. Root for Cobra if you want because developers have to embrace this paradigm for Netware and others to stay in the race. Hey if I'm off base - enlighten me. I'm still learning.... Someone post something or I will not know if this made sense to anyone but me. I can tell you this COBRA vs DCOM discussion is something every investor in Novell should clearly understand....IMHO" Jim McCormack 2/3/97 END REPOST So - I would be interested in comments regarding Netware 5.0 as a "Cobra" Compliant platform and the like. If you view Novell with this lense any link up with Netscape makes a great deal of sense. Problem is they both are struggling. They should have merged earlier. I hope it doesn't keep them from exploring it now - they are clearly moving in the same direction and could use each other.