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

To: dwight vickers who wrote (24646)	12/7/1998 10:01:00 PM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 42771

Novell upgrading older NetWare version Upgrade for NetWare 4.11 and intraNetWare integrates NDS with IP and IPX. By Scott Berinato, PC Week Even as NetWare 5.0 makes its way into customers' hands, Novell Inc. is upgrading an older version of the network operating system for users not quite ready to make the leap to the latest and greatest. The Provo, Utah, company (Nasdaq:NOVL) on Monday announced the release of NetWare 4.2, an upgrade for NetWare 4.11 and intraNetWare customers. But who needs this interim upgrade to a predominantly IPX-based OS if IP-based NetWare 5.0 -- which is already shipping -- is considered an improvement? "We believe NetWare 5 provides what most customers are looking for," said Sean Sanders, NetWare 4.2 product manager at Novell. "We recommend customers look at NetWare 5 as the best option [for an upgrade]. Having said this, many will have good reasons to continue with NetWare 4 as they evaluate and plan upgrades to NetWare 5." Sanders said several types of customers will choose the NetWare 4.2 upgrade: those who want to phase in version 5.0; those who don't have management approval to migrate to 5.0 but who will gain new features in this upgrade for their installed base; those who prefer to let others work out the bugs in a new OS while they stay with a proven one; and those who have developed applications that run on 4.11 but not on 5.0. Integration The upgrade integrates NDS (Novell Directory Services) with both IP and IPX for NetWare 4.11 customers, and it ships with the same ZENworks client software that NetWare 5.0 uses, which will ensure a seamless upgrade from 4.2 to 5.0, officials said. Other new features include a five-user version of Oracle Corp.'s Oracle8 database and Netscape Communications Corp.'s FastTrack Web server and Communicator software. Remote access, routing and scripting tools also ship with NetWare 4.2. The Novell Upgrade Wizard is included to make smoother transitions from earlier NetWare servers, officials said. NetWare 4.2 is not a stop-gap product meant to fill a hole that has emerged since the release of NetWare 5.0 in September, said John Slitz Jr., Novell's senior vice president of corporate marketing. Clear to us "This decision has been clear to us since Eric [Schmidt, Novell's CEO] and I came on board," Slitz said, adding that NDS has played a key role in user migrations from older NetWare servers to versions 4.2 and 5.0. "The directory rises again and again to be the key piece of technology you need to manage the entire picture," Slitz said. Another reason for the upgrade, according to Sanders, has to do with the conversion issues about to befall the industry -- specifically, the European currency conversion and the year 2000 bug. NetWare 4.2 is certified for the euro and is year 2000-ready, he said. NetWare 4.2 will ship on December 31. The server lists for $1,095, which includes a five-user license. Additional user licenses are available in five-, 10-, 25-, 50-, 100-, 250- and 500-user iterations. zdnet.com