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: Bearded One who wrote (23573)	8/24/1998 7:34:00 PM
From: Peter Connolly	Respond to of 42771

Hi Bearded One You're probably correct in that assumption, MSFT will stay locked on course with Microsoft Active Directory - MAD, as we call it in this neck of the woods :-) Their problem, and I think they know it, although their demeanour doesn't show it too much, is that no one will trust it. It's not too bad if a desktop system gets hosed by the registry a la Win 95 or NT workstation. It's still not too bad if a domain get messed up, since things will probably still run, just pretty badly. If a directory gets hosed, however, it's a different kettle of fish. Imagine an entire network being brought down by a bug in MAD. Imagine being the CTO of the company that happens to. "You can deposit every piece of information about your network in this replicated, distributed database and trust it forever". By the way, it's a MSFT Version 1 product. (sound of chairs being pushed back and feet heading for the door). They've got a credibility problem. They're still "The desktop company" and they know it. Most people know it. How do they get around it? Don't know, and don't really care. They probably will, but it'll take money and time. Money they have, time they don't. They need to start generating revenue with NT5 pretty quickly. Corporates won't rush willy-nilly into upgrades for 'Office 2000', Win 01, or whatever they want to produce in the same time frame without a compelling reason. Witness Win 98 - I have yet to come across a company that 'needs' this upgrade. Intel have a similar problem in that people don't really need a PII 450Mhz to run MS Office, unless MS Office requires a PII 450Mhz, which it doesn't. Yep, they've got advantages, but they do have their own problems. One of the things I look forward to is the release of Win NT 5, just to read the magazine articles saying "but if you want a real directory service, go for NDS for NT, it's been around longer and it works". It'll happen, sure as night follows day. Regards Peter