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

To: Spartex who wrote (27101)	6/3/1999 12:31:00 AM
From: Kenneth Cheung	Respond to of 42771

I wouldn't make that big of a deal in this contract as it seems that BT is still emphasizing file and print functions of Netware. However, remember that Nortel, Lucent and even Cisco are supporting NDS. See the theme developing? All these companies are in telecom area and if Novell dominates corporate networks, imagine the possibilities in the public network??? Now that the foundation is there, all Novell needs is a killer appplication and "digitalme" might just be what the doctor ordered. I think once this starts taking off then people will realize that Novell isn't just about file and printing but about NDS where robust applications can be based upon. So I think the future looks promising if all this can be executed properly... (and delays in Win 2000 doesn't hurt either!). Ken

To: Spartex who wrote (27101)	6/3/1999 12:53:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 42771

I have some thoughts as usual :) The article does point out that BT is using Novell's NetWare 5.0 as their in-house corporate network but doesn't mention anything about incorporating Novell's technology in their leading business services. I'd be more excited to hear news from BT in line with this: BT announces new services based on Novell NDS and NDS-related products such as BorderManager, ICS, Internet Mail System and digitalme. Now that type of announcement would bring a grin about 2 miles wide :) But again, let's take a look at the people jumping onto the NDS bandwagon. Over half are telcos. What is a telephone network(s) but the largest computer-based network(s) ever assembled? When you get right down to it, a telephone network is comprised of the same concepts, hardware and even to a degree software that data networks are. When BT notices the strength of NDS on their updated IP data network and takes a leap of faith to move NDS into their telco services....that day will be sweet. See that's the key here. NetWare and NDS were always in their own little world of IPX. They used different ways to get NetWare onto IP networks but it was never quite good enough. Now NetWare and NDS can work in IP natively meaning they don't need to jump through hoops anymore. This is a very HUGE factor. This means there's one HUGE barrier taken down. <<for those non-techie types, the internet uses IP as a common language for different system to communicate. It's a standard agreed upon, sort of a like a univeral language for computers. IPX is Novell's own proprietary protocol which works very well on local networks. Since IP is standardized and used by nearly everyone, it's the way to go.>> Lucent, Nortel, BT, Maritime Telephone and Telegraph, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph. These are some of the telco companies riding the NDS wave. The one to watch here is MT&T in Canada. They are actually working on using NDS to enhance their internet access services for their ADSL customers. AGIS is another company using BorderManager and NDS to offer VPN services to small and mid-sized companies. There's no limit to what you can do if you have a vision and some know-how. So from where I sit, there's many pluses for telcos to invest into NDS as long as the promise of NDS running on everything (not just NetWare) is fulfilled. When Novell gets NDS to work efficiently and perfectly on say Solaris or Linux or AS/400s as it does on NetWare 5.0, many companies will take a different look at Novell's products. I know they are very close to that right now, I'll be happier when I hear it from people who have it in production not just in test labs. NDS running on different systems seamlessly will be the home run. Once Novell can safely say that more NDS and NDS-related sales (and revenues) come from products sold unbundled from their OS we'll see a dramatic increase in awareness from all companies especially the telcos. When you add that last part up at the end of the fiscal year, you get BIG increase in sales/revenues and EPS which translates into a higher stock price (from Peter's Financial Math 101 class). Thanks for your time! Peter J Strifas