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

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (26247)	3/23/1999 4:49:00 PM
From: John J. Frawley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

iChain Forget portals: Novell's new way to shop Networking giant will unveil iChain to integrate e-shopping components for commerce sites. By Mary Jo Foley & Ed Sperling, Sm@rt Reseller March 23, 1999 6:12 AM PT Portals may not be in Novell Inc.'s future, but that doesn't mean the company isn't interested in participating in the e-commerce space. In fact, Novell has a master plan for commerce, an architecture it has dubbed iChain, which it will begin unveiling publicly starting this summer. "iChain involves integration, using the directory, of all of the components in an external web site or an online store," explained Novell CEO Eric Schmidt. "Integration is the hard problem in e-commerce and I like hard problems." Instead of relying on customers wading their ways through a commerce portal, Novell is attempting to build a commerce framework to be populated by online merchants and accessed via Novell's DigitalMe digital personal interface, which the company unveiled officially at its BrainShare developers conference in Salt Lake City yesterday. Java frameworks key While the iChain concept is language-independent, most of the base e-commerce frameworks will be written in Java. These frameworks will allow third-party vendors to plug into Novell's forthcoming Novell Directory Services (NDS) version 8.0 via a series of connectors. Novell plans to provide other e-commerce infrastructure pieces, as well, but has no intentions of fielding a Commerce Server like that unveiled by Microsoft Corp. during its e-commerce strategy unveiling earlier this month, say company officials. Instead, Novell will give third parties access to its web-server publishing system under development code-named Magellan; guaranteed quality of service access via NDS; and XML. Novell also will make available to web merchants as part of its iChain framework access to integrated third-party products , including offerings from Evergreen Internet Inc., a Java e-commerce and web transaction and publishing firm, Netegrity Inc., a secure user-management software vendor; and enCommerce, a provider of web-access solutions, according to Novell officials. Schmidt said he would like to see Novell add integration with other commerce frameworks and products from the likes of IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc., but that Novell has not signed deals with either of these vendors to participate in iChain at this time. "We can take our directory with XML and establish links to best-of-breed components," explained David Shirk, Novell vice president of product management. Shirk said Novell's recently introduced online store, shopnovell will be the "showcase" for all of these technologies. Differentiantion via 'skins' Resellers and integrators will be able to customize iChain, in general, and DigitalMe, in particular, using a "skins" model. "Channel partners can have a portfolio of skins they can sell," said Shirk. "We give them the infrastructure and they differentiate via DigitalMe." A reseller wanting to target the video store market, for example, would be able to create a customized DigitalMe option for its customers, complete down to the personalized web info cards the stores could provide to their video customers. This would provide differentiate from a content perspective. Resellers also would be able to differentiate by providing access to guaranteed quality of service and the other Novell-enabled back-end components, Shirk said. Shirk claimed Novell's new model will leapfrog the currently favored portal-based e-commerce model. "This jumps right over the portal model. The balance of power shifts," said Shirk. "VARs will enounter the situation of controlling content. And we'll see a whole other set of ISVs becoming friends of Novell's again."