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

To: Bearded One who wrote (23467)	8/12/1998 1:14:00 PM
From: Spartex	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 42771

Bearded One: I'd appreciate your comments on this cnet article regarding the announcement of Netware 5.0 release. news.com Novell plans NetWare 5.0 release By Ben Heskett Staff Writer, CNET NEWS.COM August 10, 1998, 5:00 p.m. PT <<a few excerpts that I was interested in getting other points of view on>> But analysts note that Novell is facing strong opposition on several fronts, most noticeably in the manner in which information technology departments are deploying software. Most managers are moving toward consolidating software functions on fewer server machines, a trend that flies in the face of the distributed server model that Novell is accustomed to, according to Dan Kusnetzky, program director for operating environments and serverware at market researcher International Data Corporation. "Novell is under a serious amount of market pressure because the market is changing," Kusnetzky noted. The company is banking on its expertise in administration software as a key differentiator. Its Novell Directory Services (NDS) remains ahead of technologies found in NT, though Microsoft continues to hone a next-generation Active Directory for delivery within the next NT upgrade, now likely due in late 1999. The company is also promoting the Java programming language as a method to easily build applications on top of the NetWare operating system, something that has been difficult for Novell developers in the past. Yet Java-based applications on the server are few and far between so far, although the market continues to be hyped by several prominent software companies. These elements lead some to believe that NetWare 5.0's technology is premature, given the realities of the market. "I think they've built the right software--now the market has to catch up with them," said Kusnetzky. "That isn't a good position to be in if you're trying to sell software now." Novell continues to feel encroachment from NT, even though Novell executives depict NT as a general-purpose application server while NetWare offers a specialized system for the so-called networking era. Total unit sales of operating systems for 1997 were 3.5 million, according IDC research. Of that, NT garnered 36 percent of sales, while NetWare grabbed a 26.4 percent share. But Novell believes it can craft a lucrative niche by coexisting with NT and various flavors of Unix and managing those types of software systems better. "We don't think they're comparable," stressed John Slitz, senior vice president of marketing at Novell. "When something is very important to you, you go to a specialist." Slitz said most Java development on the server is being undertaken within corporations, out of the view of the commercial market. The executive said that NetWare's optimized focus--which has resulted in some of the fastest benchmarks for Java execution and Web serving--is something Microsoft aspires to but will find hard, given the 35 million lines of code incorporated into the next release of NT. "They see the opportunity but they don't know how to get there," Slitz added. Novell executives said an anticipated release of its NDS software that runs on the NT operating system will roll out by the end of this year. To boost the functions found in NetWare, Novell will bundle a five-user implementation of version 8.0 of Oracle's flagship database software as well as Netscape Communications' FastTrack Web server software. Novell's stock barely budged on Wall Street on news of delivery of the upgrade. Separately, Novell announced that an update for potential year 2000 problems within version 4.1 of NetWare will be released to customers in the fourth quarter of this year.