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

To: ToySoldier who wrote (25732)	3/2/1999 11:32:00 PM
From: DJBEINO	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Most analysts declined to name any possible CEO candidates on the record, but some speculations included Ed Zander, chief operating officer at Sun Microsystems Inc., Eric Schmidt, chief executive at Novell Inc., Paul Otellini, an executive vice president at Intel Corp., and Ray Lane, president of Oracle Corp. biz.yahoo.com HE IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE!!

To: ToySoldier who wrote (25732)	3/3/1999 3:41:00 AM
From: Phil Jacobson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Woke up and couldn't sleep so started trolling late tonight for stock ideas and was looking at Oshap Tech (OSHSF) which happens to be the majority owner of Mint Communications, which just announced support for XML. The press release had a nice summary of XML...but upon reading it something tells me they have the same problem communicating the benefits to the market as NOVL has with NDS. About XML XML is a text-based format similar to HTML, but it allows an unlimited set of tags to describe the structure, meaning, and layout of a document's content. Valid XML messages rely on a Document Type Definition (DTD), which describe the elements and attributes of a message and how they relate to one another. XML also allows adding functionality to message structures without causing version fragmentation of the basic structure. XML's main attractions include standardization, extensibility and ease-of-use. Since XML's release, many data-exchange formats based on XML have been created, primarily because of its ability to easily represent structured data. XML tools are widely available, and many software vendors promise to provide XML support in future releases.

To: ToySoldier who wrote (25732)	3/3/1999 12:13:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Howdy! XML is an evolution of HTML bringing it closer to it's original ties with something called SGML. Ok, I won't get lost in all these acronyms here but basically XML allows any website to define their own tags. For instance, HTML tags define how the webpage will be displayed (layout & appearance). XML will allow you to add more functionality to your website without the need for programming languages (CGI. JavaScript, VBScript) but you can always embed these objects in if you want to. So for instance, when you fill out one of those forms on a website, each INPUT field has a label which is processed by a script. As you say, that takes time and back services to do. In XML, you could create a form and give INPUT fields names as objects. Example: Your name and address can become objects which the browser sees so when you fill out the form, you can re-use the information based on the objects name --- like a personalized welcome or to fill out your order form when you are ready to make a purchase. In transactions, you can specify objects like PRICE, ITEM NAME, QUANTITY and re-use them in processing the information. You can create customized searches a websurfer can use on object names such as PRICE or ITEM NAME and receive a listing sorted as such. The key is to tie this in with what's called STYLESHEETS. Here's something to help: XML itself is not a single markup language: it's a metalanguage to let you design your own markup language. A regular markup language defines a way to describe information in a certain class of documents (eg HTML). XML lets you define your own customized markup languages for many classes of document. It can do this because it's written in SGML, the international standard metalanguage for markup languages. (http://www.ucc.ie/xml/#FAQ-ACRO) What is SGML? SGML is the Standard Generalized Markup Language (ISO 8879), the international standard for defining descriptions of the structure and content of different types of electronic document. There are many languages that can be derived from XML. You can scan through a listing at xml.com It's very interesting and if Novell is using XML to define ways to interact with a directory on the internet, I'd say they are doing very well with this. Maybe Digital Me is just an example of what you can do when you move NDS into the Internet space and out of the proprietary nature of NetWare. While you are at it, check out this site: xml.com They describe how to create DTD's (document type definitions)for certain functions using XML. This is a straigh-forward description of XML: xml.com Peter Strifas