Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Whither Novell?

In addition to my angst about the Microsoft value proposition, I also worry about Novell. In fact, I worry (perhaps that's too strong a word) about Novell quite a bit.

Why is that, you might well ask.

Today we are predominantly a Novell Netware shop. We run Netware servers, GroupWise for e-mail, and use eDirectory. Yes, we do have Windows XP on the desktop, but that's about it. No, we don't use Active Directory (yet, although we will). We are in the process of deploying ZenWorks (Novell again) for monitoring, controlling, and patching the desktop remotely. We have SuSE Linux running on our web servers, and are planning to extend its use even further with Open Enterprise Server. Our plan, if everything works well, is to migrate to OES from Netware. If things work as advertised (and I've been doing this long enough to know they won't - at least not at first), we'll be able to eliminate Netware and have the same functionality on top of a Linux kernel.

We also run HP / UX on HP-RISC architecture boxes. Tentatively, we plan to migrate those to SuSE Linux as well. The only catch there is our PeopleSoft application. Oracle only certifies PeopleSoft on Red Hat. Of course, we'd prefer SuSE. But we're still looking at our options there. For the servers simply hosting Oracle databases, cluster SuSE Linux servers will work just fine.

Have you picked up on the cause for my concern yet? If not, re-read the the previous two paragraphs. A huge amount of our infrastructure strategy hinges on Novell delivering what it says it will. And we're doing that at a time when Novell is cutting back on staff. So yes, my anxiety quotient is definitely rising.

The good news is the things we are concentrating on really play to the strength of the Novell strategy. They know Netware is going to slowly die, and they need to give customers options or perish completely. But Novell has never been particularly good at marketing, and now I worry about their ability to deliver the goods. If we are going to pull off our strategy in a reasonable timeframe, we NEED Novell to deliver.

I'm attending a full day seminar on Friday which features high-level Novell folks. I intend to be asking some hard questions. Hopefully the answers will fill me with some hope. If not, next week could easily become strategy rethink week. It is certainly sad to see Novell in these straits, especially when they OWNED the network operating system for a period of time. Their problem was that they thought a superior technical product didn't need marketing or attention. Microsoft, as it has done to so many others, saw an opportunity and left them in the dust. They repositioned Windows server as an application server, which could, if you so desired, could also handle file and print management. A sound move; one which Novell could and should have matched, but didn't bother to address. Eventually they did, but by then everything they could do was too little and too late.

Sigh ....................