IBM Takeover Of Novell? 129
umjaja96 writes: "Reuters is reporting that IBM is rumored to be looking to buy Novell. Perhaps Big Blue is looking to strengthen its mid-range and lower end servers with something not from Redmond?"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
IBM Takeover of Novell?
Related Links Top of the: day, week, month.
"Money is the root of all money." -- the moving finger
Novell+WinNT (Score:1)
It's actually a decent solution for a client base of about 300 or so, if you absolutely have to have NT on the desktops. My last client had such a setup, where all the authentication, whatever, were handled by a Novel Netware box. It, and it alone (the Exchange server died horriably), survived the stupid I love you virus fiasco there.
However, at the same time, I really don't see Novell bringing IBM much value. As another poster had suggested, is IBM that strapped for office space?
--
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Re:Why? - NOVELL Crumbles? (Score:1)
asswipe...
Re:Novell+WinNT (Score:1)
Our 300-ish network is/was being served off of one NW box and one NT box, running exchange. 300 * 30 = 9000, which is almost the ballpark of your 15,000 figure :-)
Seriously, I figure that the Compaq box that the thing runs off of can probably handle about 500 clients easily.
A question, though. Does NW support clustering?
--
Bleh (Score:2)
One to add to the pile (Score:1)
Even the samurai
have teddy bears,
and even the teddy bears
Re:IBM Moving Into Mainstream Unix... (Score:1)
If you'll cast your mind back a few years you'll remember that at one point in time Novel bought USL which gave Novel the final piece of the puzzle: the SVR4 version of Unix which they could integrate into their network operating system.
This integration was such an abysmal failure that Novell eventually sold their Unix division to SCO. If IBM is trying to solve a puzzle they need a few more pieces than Novell.
--
Don Dugger
VA Linux Systems
Novel SMP - who needs it? (Score:1)
What Novell brings to IBM. (Score:1)
Re:It's a deal that should have happened already. (Score:1)
Speaking as a tech who works in a Novell shop, I can tell you that, at least in-house, there might be some pretty irate people if Groupwise got axed in favor of Notes. I'm no expert in it, but from what I've experienced, GW is a pretty stable, functional product. Never used Notes, but I've heard some horror stories. Still, considering that both products do essentially the same thing, a merger would almost guarentee one product being dropped: probably Groupwise.
Re:Looks like a big marketing problem (Score:1)
IBM's done due diligence before... (Score:1)
Personally, I've always thought the merger made sense. Even though Novell has always had a terrific balance sheet to hold them through tough times (lots of cash, no debt), IBM's ownership could be a huge shot in the arm for them. I remember investigating Notes before IBM bought Lotus, but was put off by the price ($350 per desktop just for the client software). IBM bought them out, dropped the client price to a reasonable level, and Notes' sales took off.
Re:IBM Moving Into Mainstream Unix... (Score:1)
The "integration" wasn't even attempted. Novell went from "UnixWare is the SuperNOS of the future" to "Netware + NDS is the future (with WinNT as your application server)" in a very short amount of time.
Maybe the customer base didn't want UnixWare. On the other hand, they weren't so enthusastic about NetWare 4.x either. Anyway, now Novell has been spending years doing things like adding TCP/IP and turning NW into a web/database server to appease it's 15% marketshare of true believers. Too bad that a few years ago they owned all of that and more in UNIX.
--
Re:Odd choice, IMHO (Score:1)
know. Novell works [for the most part], and for many companies the cost of
migrating 100% over to another solution would cost them far more than just the
software installs. For many years, Novell was the leader for the low-to-mid
network end just because it was cheaper for them to throw down a Novell setup
with standard *DOS, and hire a CNE for about the same MCSEs are going for
these days, rather than pay for a UNIX and everything go for at leasttwice as
much [administration and software, costwise. UNIX admins have, for the most
part, been the high $$ ones]. Now, Novell's so highly ingrained in some places
that it's practically irremovable [if such a word exists].
Microsoft to purchase AndoverNet (Score:5)
Shares of both companys did what is normally expected of over inflated speculative trading.
``We don't comment on rumors,'' said Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.
`Typically we don't comment on these kinds of rumors,'' said Rob Malda creater of the overly popular Slashdot news board.
----
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
Re:It's a deal that should have happened already. (Score:1)
NDS beats Active Directory hands down (Score:2)
If you weren't already aware, NDS has been tested to handle something like 4 billion objects in the directory. So... one NDS network could handle any Fortune 500 company's directory requirements. And don't tell me that's not where the money is right now. Directory services are all about integrating disparate functions.
Commodity directory services (Score:5)
Novell needs to open-source NDS now, before it becomes irrelevant. IBM has the guts to do this, and the bucks to maintain the software as a loss leader to continue to sell services around it. If NDS is open sourced, it will become ubiquitous almost overnight, especially on Linux systems, where it will become the standard directory service. If they choose the GPL, even the Debian folks will adopt it. Imagine being able to write directory-aware applications for Linux, knowing that NDS will always be there.
That's my $0.02, anyway. Personally I think the rumor is bogus.
--
Re:You have to feel sorry for Novell... (Score:1)
BR>No no, you've got it all wrong. NT/2k is a workstation that thinks it's a network operating system.
Re:Looks like a big marketing problem (Score:1)
Now I have genuinely tried and given it my best effort with the best possible will and I just have to conclude that it is hard to use (install). Not only does it seem to be hard to use but there is no sense of community that there seems to be with linux. So I would have to say that this is the reason that os2 didn't take off, not IBMs marketing (who BTW seem to be doing a fine job of marketing linux right now)
Re:Novell hasn't mattered in a long time (Score:1)
However, M$ pretty much exploited the bugs in IBM's implementations of SMB. (Mostly OS/2) They later resurfaced in the SAMBA project. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad idea to look over SAMBA to see how they can fix OS/2 for version 6. (Or whatever the next version will be...)
--Matt
Re:Novell is dead (Score:1)
This sounds like a very wise plan to me... After all, if they integrate it into OS/2 e-business editon well, and use that for the in-house server, and advocate Linux boxen for the publicly available servers, and say that the desktops can run either, NT will seriously suffer. Companies will be able to offer a pair of OSes that suit needs appropriately. (Which is currently NT and Mac in many companies. Have you ever attempted to get the two to work together? Fun, ain't it?)
So, is Novell really dead with this kind of potential to revive their current flagship OS?
--Matt
Re:Commodity directory services (Score:1)
Re:Here's Why (Score:1)
--Matt
Re:Looks like a big marketing problem (Score:1)
Mmm, binderies. Binary-files like windows registries, that stored all settings and network objects, users, etc., and which mysteriously tended to corrupt themselves over time.
(Leaving any hapless admin who had forgotten to back up these happy strange binderies to rebuild the entire system from memory and logs.) Fun!
As it were, at least Novell realized how much the bindery sucked, and so they threw it out in 4 and 5, I think.
Get your quotation marks off Indian development! (Score:1)
While AFS may or may not be a hot technology anymore, I seriously doubt that shifting development to India should be taken as a guide to whether it is suceeding or on IBMs priority list.
There's a lot of companies moving their operations overseas - not because they want to turn their US based development into your special open quotation marks [which would generalkly ], but because countries like Indoa and Ireland have vast quantities of extremely well educated people that speak English and hold advanced degrees in mathematical subjects [and more than the US, too]. Pay rates for most development work are around the same as the US and UK. A company I work for here in Australia was charged three and a half grand recently by a local [and quite well established] company to develop a basic page. Its a quarter mB of shitty looking Flash, using bitmaps for text, as a single file, with nothing if you don't have Flash installed but a white screen. There seems to be no way we can convince them to do a better job. So they paid them, and have since discovered an Indian company with a mich greater talent for work. That's not a reflection on the entire Australian web design market, just that connectivity allows talented foreign companies entrances to local marketplaces easily, and that talent wins over mediocrity. And India seems to have the talent all too often these days.
There's a vast quantity of talent coming out of India, a number of rather large startups [for example, where do you think all those old Novell execs ended up - with a bunch of Indian folk at endix].
India is not a third or first world, country, it is both, with one of the worlds greatest disparities between rich and poor.
Here's a question: Whose the world biggest producer of software? If you answered Ireland, you win.
Re:Commodity directory services (Score:1)
Good for them! (Score:1)
Of course I'm talking about Novell, whaddaya think!?
-----
Special typo-corrected version... (Score:1)
While AFS may or may not be a hot technology anymore, I seriously doubt that shifting
development to India should be taken as a guide to whether it is suceeding or on IBMs priority list.
There's a lot of companies moving their operations overseas - not because they want to turn their US based development into your special open quotation marks development [which would generally imply some sort of scaled-down operation], but because countries like India and Ireland have vast quantities of extremely well educated people that speak English and hold advanced degrees in mathematical and computer science subjects [and more of them than the US, too].
Pay rates for most development work are around the
same as the US and UK. A company I work for here in Australia was charged three and a half grand recently by a local [and quite well established] company to develop a basic web site. Its a quarter mB of shitty looking Flash, using bitmaps for text, as a single file, with nothing if you don't have Flash installed but a white screen. There seems to be no way we can convince them to do a better job. So they paid them, and have since discovered an Indian company with a mich greater talent for work. That's not a reflection on the entire Australian web design market, just that connectivity allows talented foreign companies
entrances to local marketplaces easily, and that talent wins over mediocrity. And India seems to have the talent all too often these days.
There's a vast quantity of talent coming out of India, a number of rather large startups [for example, where do you think all those old Novell execs ended up - with a bunch of Indian folk at (sorry, name currently eludes me. They're a web acceletation company)]. There's also Hotmail, Cybermedia, Exodus, and quite afew others.
India is not a third or first world, country, it is both, with one of the worlds greatest
disparities between rich and poor.
Here's a question: Whose the world biggest producer of software? If you answered Ireland,
you win.
x
Re:Looks like a big marketing problem (Score:1)
The problem is that Netware never was that good an Application Server (Netware Loadable Modules...), although it will do just fine and then some as a file- and printserver. So users installed other OSes alongside and more and more instead of Netware.
When they fixed that in Netware 5, allowing Java apps to run and making development much easier, it was too little, too late...
<cents>2</cents>
Rumors only (Score:2)
``Typically we don't comment on these kinds of rumors,'' said a Novell spokeswoman.
What a story! Someone starts a rumor, then reports it by asking the companies about the rumors.
Of course, they didn't deny it, either.
Re:Novell (Score:1)
so, now, we get what... (Score:2)
hmm... (Score:1)
Re:Bleh (Score:1)
Why? (Score:1)
Does anyone know what Novell have that is currently of value to IBM?
Eg. you can see why Caldera snapped up SCO.
cheers,
G
so why do they recommend win2k then... (Score:1)
Re:It's a deal that should have happened already. (Score:1)
That's funny, cause Novell's got GW. Now granted I've heard this 'IBM buying Novell' a couple of times now, so there is probably little substance to it.
I'm just trying to figure out what they would do with GroupWise. They've got tons of users still (I think they're third behind Notes & Exchange). So would they migrate them to an 'NDS enhanced' version of Notes? Keep both products? I guess if they combined the two into one big product (if it's even feasable), it would sure mess up Exchange. I don't know... It's just something to think about, I guess.
Novell is dead (Score:1)
Re:Your website's down! (Score:1)
Re:Odd choice, IMHO (Score:2)
One of the big things Novell is pushing with eDirectory(new cheesy name for NDS) is that you can manage NetWare, Linux, Windows, etc from one NDS tree and if IBM gets ahold of NDS I'm sure that'll include everything they market also, which is very appealing to large companies.
If this is true it's probably just a move against Microsoft/AD by IBM, and what better person to take down MS than the former heavy weight champ =)
--
Re:Novell is dead (Score:1)
Re:Why Novell Won't Succeed (Score:1)
If you want to see where AD on Linux will be, look where Samba on Linux is now and the momentum it has. Do you think that Win2k/AD integration won't be important to the Linux world? The ability to work with almost any OS/protocol/hardware/network is whats helped Linux get as far as its come. Becoming an ivory tower and ignoring significant parts of the market won't help.
Re:...proof of Novell's pending demise (Score:1)
all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut
Re:Why Novell Won't Succeed (Score:2)
NDS cost is the other issue. I think its much more likely that vendors of non-Win2k platforms are likely to come up with AD interoperability for their own OS. No need to rely on MS for AD portability, no need to worry about native OS updates clobbering AD interoperability, and the biggest one, no need to double or triple your per-user licensing costs just to run NDS.
That last point is the thing that's going to keep multiplatform NDS out of the mainstream. It's really unclear to me that NDS adds enough value to warrant paying an additional $20-30 per seat when the OSs have built-in management. Maybe it's not as good as NDS, but its not costing extra, either.
Novell has hot code (Score:3)
2) The filesystem. It kicks ass, and reached its splendor in 3.12. From then on, it had to share CPU cycles & memory with NDS, but still was obscenely fast. Nothing, I tell you, NOTHING running on i386 ever matched the performance of a NetWare file server. NFS is a joke, Windows networking is a joke, Samba (although crucial for interoperability) is the emulation of a joke. I'd hate to see that code go up in smoke as Novell finally dies.
Netware was a peculiar beast. There were about 5 or 6 different pools of memory allocation, with different management and different use, which you had to fine-tune for maximum performance. A sizeable chunk of the manual was dedicated just for that.
Ok, that's enough nostalgia rant tonight. Now I really gotta sleep. Bye.
Re:It's a deal that should have happened already. (Score:2)
Groupwise has some real problems. The formatting of the calendar is uncontrollable, the printing is horrible, the mail feels like a bolted on kludge. I suppose that folk who use it without any choice eventually get used to it, but I don't know how they manage, and I've been easing into it for over 6 months. Until I finally gave up, and went back to a calendar that let me configure message classifications (Urgent, Important,
I don't know Notes, but I haven't heard anyone say anything bad about it, and I've been hearing about it for years.
So, FWIW, my guess it that GW would be allowed to molder. IBM is pretty good about keeping old software working, but it also doesn't invest lots of effort in something that it has decided isn't central. Were the deal to go through, I would expect three more releases of GW. One for the version that Novell is working on now. One to integrate it more smoothly into the new IBM network plan. And then one to fix all remaining major bugs. Then a few maintenance releases. Of course, during this period IBM would be pushing ahead at normal speed on Network/OS development and linkages. GW would stop being pushed by the sales teams as other products acquired the features that GW was good at.
OTOH, I would bet that you can still get a PLIXCLG module for your MVS system. IBM doesn't drop you cold.
Re:Why Novell Won't Succeed (Score:2)
You may be able to sell the "but if we spend a zillion dollars we can make the network cheaper to operate" where YOU work, but here, it's never clear that the financial outlay is worth it either to me or the people that approve my budgets.
The problem with large dollar outlays is that they DO show up in budgets and on balance sheets, but the "savings" never do. The savings are always theoretical estimates or wild claims from the always reliable people at whatever IT consulting group is big these days. To the people on top it often sounds like "the more you spend the more you save".
The same arguments have been made for years about high-falutin' SNMP management products. "If we could only have the $1M or however much to buy/config/install HP OpenVue/Tivoli/etc we could manage our network so much better and save millions down the road." Meanwhile, two years later you're still configuring/installing/calling the consultants in search of the big management savings.
The long and the short of it is that I'm not against NDS -- I use it every day! And I'm not *for* AD -- I still haven't even implemented it in a test environment. And I am VERY pro directory-enabled everything. What I am is skeptical that Novell's NDS (or eDirectory or whatever they're calling it today) is going to be *the* directory that makes it. I think Novell's business is too fsck'd up, I think they don't have an OS to subsidize NDS on other platforms, and I think they're charging too much to gain mass acceptance on operating systems other than Netware that they need in order for it to really be a success.
Re:Why? - NOVELL Crumbles? (Score:1)
What you mean? They already have AIX.
Re:so why do they recommend win2k then... (Score:1)
Someone should write a soap opera.
BlackholeTV [blackholetv.com] - TV that Swallows
Re:Novell? (Score:1)
This is exactly what Linuxconf [solucorp.qc.ca] is trying to do, and pretty sucessfully so far too. User administration, sendmail setup, apache setup, bind, wu-ftpd, system services, all from one app.
Re:Novell+WinNT (Score:2)
However, a client base of about 300 is way too pessimistic. I run a Uni network with 15000 regular users (30000 registered users, but like most students, most of them don't turn up every day of the week). We've got 30+ NW4.11 servers. The clients all run NT4.0. Spiffy.
A lot of people have been passing comments such as "IBM's already pushing Linux", as though it's a valid competitor for medium installations (such as ours) or larger. Without some sort of directory, managing that many users is pig-awful (I know, I ran an NT3.51 service for a while). So far as I know, Linux alone doesn't have a directory, although you can run NDS on it.
Finally, the Active Directory that Microsoft are pushing is just a kludge built on top of a fifteen year old kludge. I know full well it will succeed eventually, but merely by power of marketing. It will never match the NDS technically.
Rob. (a happy NT Workstation user, who uses a proper NOS for serving, and tinkers with Linux to keep his nerdish instincts alive)
Yeah whatever... (Score:1)
Basically this type of penny market scam is the only way Novell know how to make any money. Make the wise move and give you remaining Novell sock to charity, now you can be the one that is view as benevolent, while writing off some of the loss on your year-end taxes.
IBM supports Open Source 100% (Score:1)
"Now the forces of openness have a powerful and unexpected ally..." [ibm.com]
http://www-4.ibm.com/software/is/mp/linux/audio
Re:Novell is dead (Score:2)
It's in the small to midrange installations where you see the techno cowboy wannabes who know how to double-click and therefore consider themselves network experts, that Windows NT replaces Netware rapidly.
--
Re:IBM already has a mid-range server solution! (Score:1)
Re:Novell is dead (Score:1)
Which reminds me of... this morning I went into my closest Wells Fargo branch and their entire system was down! I'm not sure of the scope (they said it was just that branch) but it was interesting, if not annoying (I didn't actually have any serious business to do).
Re:Commodity directory services (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:1)
myserver[1]: prompt where the number is the number of times it has crashed since reboot.
If that happens you might want to check under
---
Re:Novell Not Dead (Score:1)
But the problem is that unless Novell manages to teach the salespersons at all the companies that "sells" Novell to spell to something else than NT, it will be dead.
Most of them are too stupid, they go for ye old "you never get fired for choosing/selecting Microsoft". I have a daily struggle trying to get them to sell NetWare too, at least to our customers who already has a old NetWare server and just wants to upgrade it.
The biggest "downside" about Novell will always be that you sell 3 times as many hours of consulting assistance to NT networks. Everyone does, I even know companies who's sales dept. were told only to sell NT because of that.
---
Re:hmm... (Score:1)
Déja vu? (Score:1)
I worked for a Banyan reseller at the time, and this news scared ourselves and some of our customers.
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Ahem! 10 years ago Novell's marketing was way ahead of Banyan, their major competitor, who had *zero* marketing, yet a powerful (at the time) product, and sold mainly on word-of-mouth.
IBM as a network services provider... (Score:2)
Re:Isn't Gnome Foundation about new life? (Score:1)
IBM has always been this way - for many years the AS/400, RS/6000, and S/370 groups competed for customer mindshare and they still do, albeit with somewhat less intensity and a grudging pandering to Microsoft customers. (IBM's rush to embrace Linux shows their distaste for all things Microsoft.)
IBM is still all about account control (for 50 years, now) and selling hardware, even though services contribute a growing share of revenues. The only difference lately is, if IBM can't talk a CIO into outsourcing to Global Services, there is still the pitch - "We offer you _everything_." Account control means lock-in and big profits - millions of dollars annually for each captive CIO.
However [and back on topic,
So - aside from Netware - IBM might be looking to buy Novell's cadre of software engineers (who are mostly located in a relatively low cost-of-living region - Utah) at a steep discount: a good deal.
In an IT acquisition, the buyer always perceives some undervalued assets - whether these might be infrastructure, software products, people, whatever. A weak stock price is the invitation.
Re:IBM already has a mid-range server solution! (Score:1)
With Netware, AS/400 and OS/390 IBM would have mainframe style OSes that cover the whole range from mom and pop stores to fortune 500 companies. With Linux and AIX, they have the same range with UNIX. Both the currently viable styles of OS in all sizes, and one directory service to bind them.
This doesn't seem at all unexpected, Netware fills the mainframe-OS-on-commodity-hardware hole in IBM's product line that Linux created with the Unix-derivative-on-commodity-hardware solution.
Re:Novell is dead (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:1)
I'm not surprised (Score:1)
It's sad things went bad for them, but their philosophy of plugging into a network anything that emits heat is a head-plunge down a cliff.
--
Kiro
Re:Novell is dead (Score:2)
Re:Novell? (Score:2)
Linux was born in '91 right? Novell's NDS has been around almost that long, and its only gotten better. NDS allows you to tie pretty much everything together - Desktops, Servers, Users, eMail, Firewall, DNS etc. The real question is, why wouldn't Big Blue (tm) want them?
Now, I'm a big fan of linux (note: not a zealot), but there are some things that Novell just does better. Case in point, my buddy Arcterex and I have often debated (over a wee pint o' Guiness) over Novell's value as compared to Linux... as I work with Novell and he with Linux (surprise, surprise...) What it comes down to for me is this: Linux can't even come CLOSE to Novell for having an EASY way for management - Novell's Netware Administrator takes the money all the way to the bank!
Now, I'm not a Micro$oft fan either, but I have occasion to work with their products on a daily basis (not my choice, but they have the market share right now). Their management software (User administration, Server Administration etc) isn't that bad for ease of use (GETTING to where you need to go isn't bad...its making it do what you want thats a pain in the @$$)
The thing that BOTH Micro$oft and Linux could learn from Novell is integration. Netware Administrator (NWadmin for the uninitiated) does everything. No, I mean *everything*. There are some tasks you actually have to go to the server console for, oh wait, you can RCONSOLE there through NWadmin... [grin]. The point being, that for pretty much every task/area of management you want, there is a SNAP-IN for the Administrator. Very Handy.
With Linux you have to go to 15 million different files to get things configured properly. And the REAL key is knowing which ones you need and how to do it properly. This isn't necessarily a bad (tm) thing, but it does produce a pretty steep learning curve. You'll notice how Unix Admin's get paid buckets more than Novell ones... its because Unix is harder to admin (that and there is more demand for *nix admins than for Novell)
Anywho, I'm done rambling... got work to do.
Neil.............
Re:Your website's down! (Score:1)
Where did you register that?
I was under the impression that registrars weren't registering offencive domain names.
cheers,
G
NetWare is worth it (Score:1)
I'm glad that Novell's going to be given another chance under Big Blue's umbrella. Go IBM.
Re:Novell is dead (Score:1)
Stable? In 22 months it's crashed exactly once. Fast? File access is still fast enough for me, and I'm type A with rabies.
Other firms our size in the city are running as many as 6 NT servers to do the same chores. Maybe I could replace it with *nix or *BSD, but why fuck with something that's almost perfect? "Almost" that is, until IBM open-sources NDS. I think I'd wet myself
Re:IBM already has a mid-range server solution! (Score:1)
Re:Looks like a big marketing problem (Score:1)
Re:Odd choice, IMHO (Score:1)
If you haven't seen one, why comment on it's suitability? NDS eDirectory (and that's the real product here, let's not kid ourselves) is scalable to 32 billion objects, theoretically. The largest production environments for NDS are well over a billion, AFAIK. All that and multi-platform to boot.
Let's get serious here. (Score:1)
Novell (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Re:Novell? (Score:1)
Re:Novell hasn't mattered in a long time (Score:1)
No, that should go between the Fad and Zealot files for Linux.
Novell Not Dead (Score:2)
Novell is a going concern for these reasons:
NDS (eDirectory)
Best directory on the planet. Scales incredibly, has been around for 8 years, can talk to every open protocol for querying directories and authenticating users (just about). This includes things like linux PAM modules, radius servers, LDAP server, and other internetty things.
Open Strategy
Novell seems to only be going for open protocols and interoperability these days. For example, rather than rip out active directory in win2k, they sync to it
Proper thrust (ooh!) for integration between platforms.
You don't even need Netware to run NDS these days, you can run it on NT, and they're adding lots more platforms
DirXML
Wow. This stuff is amazing - it's the XML-description based integration for the directory. Basically, it populates databases from NDS automatically, and it's ALL OPEN. Apparently XML is going to be the magic glue to join disparite systems, and is being supported by all sorts of vendors. It'll be nice if it works
Now you probably think i digested a Novell marketing course, but seriously : i like novell's software. There are way too many drawbacks in an NT environment (domains? WTF?, services, WTF? proxy server, WTF?) - and even Linux is a dirty, dirty pig to manage. Yes, I can manage a linux box pretty damned well, but it'd be really nice to manage 50 linux boxes and their resources via a directory.
Linux will get there, and Novell might even be the people to bring it there.
What's this got to do with IBM? - not a lot, but I probably wouldn't mind seeing them merge. So long as it's a lotus-esque merger. IBM hasn't broken Lotus's good products (Notes).
And that's my 2 cents
PS: Apologies for posting this twice, but I accidentally banged the submit button before I was finished
You have to feel sorry for Novell... (Score:2)
They produced a quality product for years, and the experience really showed. Then they got virtually bundled out of the market (partly at least) by a network OS virtually still in it's embryonic stage.
As one of the long line of people who are forced t o work with NT on a daily basis, and had worked with Netware previously I really can't express enough how much I hope that IBM can get Novell, and help reclaim some of the server market from NT/2k (a NOS that thinks it's a workstation).
I just hope it's not too late.
Someone pass IBM the defibrillator.
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge [insurge.com.au] - AK47
One trick pony? (Score:2)
Netware has been losing market share for years and it's pretty clear that regardless of it's power as a file/print server I think that more memory/more servers are probably a better investment than Novell training.
If IBM buys, it'd be for NDS and maybe for the programmers.
- StaticLimit
Unix, that is why! (Score:2)
Part of the driving reason for Caldera to buy parts of SCO....access to a cheaper IP licence for Unix.
And, with the right IP mix, either/both vendors can force other vendors to pay for a licence - aka push up the costs for the other vendors.
IBM Moving Into Mainstream Unix... (Score:2)
Every day some Tom, Dick, and Harry start an Internet company. Who better to sell them hardware and software than IBM, a trusted name and institution.
If IBM buys Novell, IBM will have the final piece of the puzzle: a network operating system from which to integrate Linux/AIX compatibility.
The future: cheap, powerful, versatile servers.
viva la revolution!
Wouldn't it be a hoot if (Score:2)
Novell (Score:3)
Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
Re:Novell hasn't mattered in a long time (Score:2)
Only idiots would allow lusers keep the primary business software on their machines. It is much more maintainable when run off a server. Why do you think people continue to sell think clients? They are more expensive than a PC. They require bigger servers. So there got to be a catch somewhere. And the catch is maintenance.
And it does not matter what M$ does to break away from the catch they are making matters even worse...
Looks like a big marketing problem (Score:3)
IBM is another company not known for being able to market great products.. look no further than OS/2, which beat Windows 3.1 in EVERY way except software compatibility at the time WARP was released.. it didn't catch on though, due in part to IBM's poor marketing.
Maybe it's just me, but I see problems when two companies which have trouble selling great products think of getting together.
--
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Since IBM has piss-poor marketing, but the best army of sales oids in the business, I think they could make a go of it.
While they're at it, they could also buy Corel for a song and we could have Novell Word Perfect again.
blessings,
Re:hmm... (Score:3)
Wonder how Novell could complement Big Blue to justify a buy-out....
I think that red goes very nicely with blue, don't you?
Re:Commodity directory services (Score:3)
IBM recognized that AFS had some deficiencies and pushed forward with DCE/DFS. At first, they gave an (official, I think) EOL on AFS along with the migration path to DCE/DFS. Once AFS customers figured out what they needed to do with DCE/DFS to make it work as well as AFS already worked, they cried foul and encouraged IBM to alter its product plans.
IBM changed their tune, saying that AFS would be supported in the future, and AFS 3.5 came out on short order. It improved file server performance by over 3 times! Meanwhile, DCE has been open sourced (or something similar, I forget) by the OSF and IBM seems to have forgotten about DFS after their big '96 olympics web site replication with DFS was met with a big "so?".
As of late, though, IBM has determined that there is not money in distributed file systems. They have shifted their "development" to India, and declared AFS to be in "maintenance only mode". [Thread 1] [mail-archive.com] [Thread 2] [mail-archive.com]
As such, AFS currently uses Kerberos IV. Pretty much every site that is serious about AFS has licensed the source and patched it for Kerberos V. This patch has been going around for at least 5 years, yet IBM has been unable to integrate it. Even worse yet, look how they have approached security bugs in Linux 2.2.14 [mail-archive.com].
It would make a lot of sense for AFS to be open sourced, but they are making no moves in that direction. I suspect that a similar fate awaits NDS, should IBM get their hands on it. Then again, maybe the leftovers from Transarc and Novell could get together and come up with a Kerberos V implementation for both products.
Re:Novell? (Score:2)
My job entails setting up a systems that dynamically installs applications based on user/workstation rights, keeps track of application licenses, connect multiple sites via VPNs, restrict Internet content, and others like web services etc. And that catch is: it must be easy enough to teach a librarian how to admin the system.
Since in NDS, every object can be trustees of any other object, it is very simple to add rights for a single person, group, container, location, and organization to applications, file shares, printers, and more.
Teachers log in and they get a full windows desktop much like our home machines (those of us that run windows), then just after they log off a student logs in and they have just a simple menu system with a completely different set of applications available to them. They don't even have rights to the applications directories on the server until they attempt to run it. When they close it, their rights are gone.
If a NOS can stand up to the worst script kiddies out there (high schoolers), IMO, it's pretty good. Throw in stability and speed, and nothing touches it....nothing.
Why Novell Won't Succeed (Score:2)
Netware is a pretty poor operating system for hosting anything other than Netware File+Print services. Memory protection options are limited and not enabled by default, SMP support is weak at best (File+Print *still* isn't SMP enabled). Ring 0 processes that tank clobber everything, and most everything that matters runs ring 0. Because of this environment, there aren't many 3rd-party applications to run on Netware and the ones that exist are a pale comparison to their NT counterparts.
Which brings us to NDS, Novell's shining star. NDS is great, but the downside to NDS is that by itself it doesn't do any good. It requires a resource(s) to manage, which generally means users and their security access to resources on a server-type machine (yes, I run Netware, and know all about Zenworks-type objects and others).
The downside to this is that ALL OS vendors provide some kind of resource management. From the simple (adduser, passwd, chmod) to the more sophisticated (ActiveDirectory, NIS+). Not only do vendor-supplied systems assume the default resource mechanisms are being used (usernames over 8 characters?) but changing the default behavior may require changing or patching applications or libraries to take advantage of the directory.
What's killing Novell (or should I say stifling NDS? Same thing) is that they don't have a general purpose operating system to compete with NT, the Unices, AS/400, et al, and the market is really favoring general purpose OSs that can handle many tasks. Trying to make Netware a general purpose OS is too little, too late.
They do have a really good directory system in NDS but by charging the amount they charge, they can double or triple the licensing costs that users end up paying for the same solution without NDS. That some OSs come with a directory that rivals some of the depth and functionality of NDS makes it a really tough sales pitch both to customers and even inside enterprises. (Bosses often think "spend more money to make my job easier" is somewhat heretical to the idea of working for a living). Novell's problem with NDS is that they can't afford to give it away on other platforms without a hot-selling OS to subsidize it, and if they can't give it away it won't get the adoption AD will get simply due to market reach.
What can Novell do to succeed? Partner with someone like Caldera, who have already been Novell friendly. Bring out "Netware for Linux": an NLM-compatible file+print system for Linux that will support SMB clients as well. Make the pricing for NDS flat-rate (ie, $1000 buys you all the stuff you need for 10 users or a million). Both of these things will get people to buy an OS from them *and* get NDS to be ubiquitous, which is what NDS needs to succeed.
There speak the clueless... (Score:2)
Let's look at it product by product against, say, WindoZe.
Novell runs more users, more HD space, better throughput and more services on half the processor power, and a quarter of the RAM compared to NT. I've had a Novell server running 1000 users for file and print sharing - as well as an internet proxy cache, DHCP server, and DNS - on a server with a single processor and 1 gig of RAM. try that on NT - but throw three more processors and at least 3 gig more RAM at it first.
Novell can't run console applications - but who WANTS to run applications on their server? I mean - is it really necessary for the administrator to play Solitaire on the server console? Get real. Netware will run a web server, database server, file and print - what more is a server for?
The new java console on a Novell server even eliminates most of Windows only advantage - the ability to administer the user environment from the console. This was a feature unavailable un Netware versions prior to 5 - but with ConsoleOne under NW 5, you can even do that.
And finally - NDS versus ActiveDirectory. No contest, really - NDS is scalable, available on more platforms than you can shake a stick at, including Solaris, Linux, IBM mainframes and more, and more reliable. ActiveDirectory? You're stuck with NT, folks - live with it.
IBM buying Novell may or may not be a good thing - I think probably not, because it'll submerge the creativity within Novell, and probably kill it off as IBM sucks up to Microsoft some more to get better deals on NT. I hope this story isn't true!
Re:Why? (Score:3)
So far as caldera and SCO goes... SCO's much more scalablet than Linux, sorry it's true. SCO's got a large installed base. Even if they can't integrate all of SCO's code into their products, they can learn quite a bit by it, enough to fold into their internal developement in an attempt to get a leg up on Redhat, et al... But mostly for the name and the installed base, is my bet...
It's a deal that should have happened already. (Score:4)
IBM has systems available all over the map - from Intel PC servers running Windows or Linux, to RS/6000 systems with AIX, to AS/400 and S/390 minis and mainframes. NDS could help them tie this picture together better. And they own Lotus - which could benefit nicely from better NDS integration.
Not to mention that IBM has done a nice job with Lotus - sure, 1-2-3/SmartSuite is toast, but they've done a terrific business with Notes, and still have a substantial lead over Microsoft in the category.
It's a good fit for IBM, good technology, and a chance to get one of the few missing pieces in IBM's technology arsenal for a cheap price. IBM could buy Novell with pocket change. I'm surprised this deal didn't happen a year ago.
- -Josh Turiel
Re:Why? (Score:2)