The Directory wars are heating up folks! There is a lot to lose for the loser of this battle IMO.
Directory showdown looms
By Mary Jo Foley, Sm@rtReseller
October 19, 1998 11:32 AM ET
It's decision day in the directory-service
market, and an unlikely vendor could cast
the swing vote in the looming showdown
between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc.
The mystery player is none other than IBM.
While Microsoft is making bold -- and
sometimes questionable -- claims about
Windows NT 5.0's application support,
sources say Novell is working to ink new
directory-service deals with Big Blue and
Caldera Inc.
Novell announced on Monday that it is working with Lucent
Technologies Inc. to meld their directory directions. Included in today's
agreement is Lucent's announcement that it is licensing NDS with its own
management software for Lucent's Cajun P550 Switch, which is a Layer
2 switching/Layer 3 routing Ethernet platform due in the first half of
1999.
The victor in the directory-service face-off will control how users,
printers, applications and security rights are managed on corporate
networks. That's why Microsoft and Novell are racing to sign up as
many directory-service partners as possible -- while striving to maintain
standards compliance.
Publicly, Microsoft is continuing to talk directory interoperability via its
ADSI (Active Directory Services Interfaces), issuing a beta version of
ADSI 2.5 release just last week. Similarly, Novell is resisting the urge to
take public potshots at Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., as it puts the
finishing touches on NDS (Novell Directory Services) for NT 2.0, due
out before the end of 1998.
Behind those facades, however, the directory-services war is in full
swing.
Novell this month is expected to announce a partnership with Caldera to
port NDS natively to OpenLinux. Caldera and Novell inked a deal
earlier this summer enabling Caldera to sell a version of NetWare 4.0
for OpenLinux. But the new deal would go beyond that, resulting in a
port of the latest NDS version and many of the related services that are
part of NetWare 5.0, according to Caldera officials.
"We still have no contract with Caldera for NDS on Linux," concedes
Novell director of marketing Michael Simpson. "But we do want to
make sure NDS is available everywhere."
At the same time, Novell continues to lobby Cisco Systems Inc. to
support NDS in addition to Active Directory, but so far it is having little
luck. In a memo issued to Cisco's sales force earlier this month,
company officials reiterated Cisco's commitment to Microsoft and said
the company will integrate only Active Directory, not NDS, with its
Cisco Networking Services software for NT and Solaris.
But Novell may be making new NDS inroads with a smaller -- but
nevertheless significant - networking hardware partner: Cabletron
Systems Inc. An official for the company said it won't play favorites and
is committed to supporting both NDS and Active Directory.
Caldera and Cabletron will certainly help Novell's NDS cause, but the
one partner that could keep Novell on top is IBM. Indeed, Big Blue is
rethinking its strategy to build an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol) directory and may extend the NDS support to its NT suites,
according to sources close to the company.
IBM already has promised to deliver NDS on AIX and OS/390. The
next step, say sources, would be to fully embrace NDS on NT and
scrap its own LDAP directory plans.
An IBM spokeswoman denies IBM is abandoning work on its own
LDAP service. But Novell's Simpson notes that Novell is "in nonstop
negotiations with all our big partners to do more with NDS, and we've
never stopped talking to IBM. IBM has seven or more different
directories throughout the company right now."
To be clear, Simpson says it's unlikely that Novell will be announcing
any new NDS partnerships with IBM before the end of the calendar
year. Nonetheless, Novell and IBM will partner this week, when the
Provo, Utah, company's NetWare 5.0 road show arrives in Seattle.
IBM will demonstrate NetWare 5.0 on its Netfinity servers at the
seminar, which will focus on year 2000 and security issues.
At another Seattle facility, which literally is next door to the Novell
event, Microsoft will hold its own NT 5.0 MiniCamp, where it will again
highlight the benefits of Active Directory. Just last week, Microsoft
evangelized Active Directory and NT 5.0 to the estimated 6,000
developers attending the company's Professional Developers
Conference.
Attendees flocked to those futures sessions, but many were frustrated
by Microsoft's reluctance to provide any updated NT 5.0 delivery-date
information. While sources said last week that Microsoft has ambitious
targets -- Nov. 20 for Beta 3 and a second-quarter 1999 final release --
officials remained mum.
"I can't give you a date for when we'll know the date for releasing NT
5.0 Beta 3," said NT Group Product Manager Mike Nash.
So far, it's unclear how many current 32-bit shrink-wrapped and custom
applications will be forward-compatible with NT 5.0. One potential
problem: The new NT file system could wreak havoc on existing utilities,
concedes Craig Beilinson, Windows-client product marketing manager.
Nevertheless, Microsoft is pushing NT 5.0 Rapid Deployment Partners
"real hard" to rapidly deploy the new OS, said an official with a systems
integrator, who requested anonymity.
Clearly, Novell has other ideas.
Additional reporting by Michael Moeller and Scott Berinato, PC Week
Online
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