Novell house divided over NDS for
NT giveaway
By CHRISTINE BURNS
Network World, 03/15/99
To be free or not to be free? That
is the question Novell's brain trust is mulling as it
considers the future of its directory for Windows NT
networks.
Novell executives want to get Novell Directory
Services (NDS) for NT installed in as many IT shops
as they can before Microsoft gets its Windows 2000
Active Directory out the door. But how far is Novell
willing to go?
In one camp are CEO Eric Schmidt and top strategy
man Chris Stone, who want to give the product away.
In the other are the board of directors,
conservative-minded marketing vice president John
Slitz and sales head Ron Heinz, who all want to hang
onto the NDS for NT revenue stream.
Users are split.
"Free NDS for NT would be a brilliant move," says
Larry Bradley, an IT manager with the Georgetown
University business school in Washington, D.C.
IT budgets are being consumed with Y2K remedies,
so there isn't a lot of money available for new
products. If Novell makes NDS for NT free, it "would
allow more shops that have a mix of network
operating systems to quit asking the NetWare or NT
question," Bradley says.
But even a free directory wouldn't sway Ed Bianco,
chief information officer at Lowell General Hospital in
Lowell, Mass., to deploy NDS for NT on his
20-server NT 4.0 network. Bianco tested NDS for
NT, but he decided it was not worth the effort.
"Why would I roll out one directory for a year or two
and replace it with the one I want?" Bianco says. "I've
got to roll out Windows 2000 anyway, so I might as
well do the directory then and go through the pain only
once."
One California systems integrator who deals with
Novell and Microsoft products warns that deploying
NDS for NT can make irreparable changes to NT
security files. Those changes would make an eventual
migration to Active Directory more difficult. "So while
free NDS for NT could be a nice carrot, there are
other [reasons why] users are holding off on it," he
says.
Stephen Bacon, an engineer with the integration firm
NetConnect in Cambridge, England, agrees.
"While NDS for NT might reduce administration
costs, the risk of increased operating system support
costs are quite real," he says. "And neither company is
really bending over backwards with support help
when there is an issue using both products."
The argument for freeware
The free NDS for NT faction is confident that the
6-year-old NDS is easier to deploy and use than the
fledgling Active Directory will be when it ships toward
year-end. The group contends that if Novell can get
NT-only shops to give the product a try, they'll like it.
Then maybe the shops will opt out of the anticipated
migration hassles of moving to Active Directory.
Now in its second iteration, NDS for NT sits on top
of Windows NT 4.0 servers and gives administrators
the ability to centrally manage access to them via
NDS. Because NDS also runs on NetWare, Sun's
Solaris, Linux and IBM S/390 boxes, an administrator
can centrally control access to all of the boxes using a
single set of directory tools.
Novell has had some success selling NDS for NT to
its traditional NetWare customers who have had to
deploy NT as application servers or branch-office
servers, explains Todd Chipman, an analyst with Giga
Information Group in Santa Clara, Calif. However, the
company has had almost no penetration into sites
where NT is the primary network operating system,
Chipman says.
Currently, Novell charges $695 per replicated NT
Server box plus $26 per end-user connection.
But internal opponents to the freeware plan worry
about what effect the move might have on Novell's
bottom line.
After dropping to an all-time low of $6 per share in
April 1997, Novell has made a slow, steady climb
back to Wall Street respectability.
Novell stock topped off at $24 last week, immediately
following an announcement that the company was
releasing beta code for a new, highly scalable version
of its directory called NDS Version 8. The turnaround
is largely credited to Novell's focused directory
message and its efforts to build new products that tap
into NDS (see story, this page).
Analysts who attended an NDS briefing earlier this
month say top strategy man Stone characterized NDS
for NT pricing as a "subject of intense debate" among
his colleagues. Stone declined to comment for this
article.
Novell's Michael Simpson, director of product
marketing, says product pricing is reviewed routinely.
For example, Novell cut the original price of NDS for
NT 1.0 by more than 60% last March after customers
complained it was too expensive. Additionally, Novell
extended its free upgrade promotion for NDS for NT
2.0 until the end of April for users who have
previously purchased the first version.
However, the decision to give away NDS for NT has
yet to be made, Simpson says.
Novell has promised an update to NDS for NT 2.0
later this spring with a new version that runs on a pure
IP network. Additionally, Novell will ship a version of
the product later this year that will be based on NDS
Version 8, Simpson says.
Either release date would be a logical time for Novell
to change the NDS for NT pricing scheme. The
sooner the better, analysts say.
"They should be out there seeding the market with this
stuff as fast as possible," says Bob Sakakeeny, an
analyst with Aberdeen Group, a consultancy in
Boston. Directories are not like browsers because
companies don't deploy directories and then swap
them out easily, he adds. "If Novell gets people
invested in NDS, they are likely to stick with that at
Active Directory's expense," Sakakeeny says.
"[Novell executives have] got to decide whether they
are going to take a short-term hit in revenue in order
to ensure their long-term success," Giga's Chipman
says.
Other analyst noted that Novell could easily cover any
revenue shortfall with the billion dollars it has in the
bank. o
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Interested in others thoughts on this. Seems like they are painting a picture of division between Schmidt/Stone and BOD/Slitz in term of how to price/sell NDS? TIA, QuadK
Go NOVL! Thanks ML! GO! |
