Novell’s ambitious strategy for Linux has led some customers to worry that the networking company may withdraw support for some of its legacy applications.
Novell’s Linux strategy worries some customers
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Why else would they be “legacy applications” ?
Great, 20 years and I may want a different network OS, however, Netware has been an extremely stable networking environment for us for years. I hate to see it go….lightening stikes-its back up the next day, server full of dust, hair and debris-it doesnt complain, office personelle hard boot it …it doesnt mind. What a lovely network!
“In 20 years time I very much doubt NetWare will still exist,” said Springbett
Thanks Capt. Obvious. Let’s hope that’s the plan or I doubt Novell will be around in 20 years.
I agree with canineEngineer. My experience with Novell at serveral large Banks a few years back made me appreciate just how good of a NETWORK OS Netware was. Virtually bulletproof and very easy to administer even large amounts of users.
But of course things times change and it seems that Novell just stayed too focused on the Network still while the rest of the world was moving towards cheap all-inclusive OS’s. They stuck with IPX too long as well and by time they went to TCP/IP taking the time to migrate to it brought up questions of why not just use something else at this point (windows, linux).
I still have a place in my heart for Netware and my CNE certificate will always remind me of the years BL (Before Linux) and how fast the ‘norm’ can change. But time to put Novell down in my opinion. Sad seeing them latch onto the Linux chain. Sort of like watching Jerry Rice get traded to the Seatle Seahawks for a 7th round pick.
when you really look at this it appears that they are meaing the Groupwise client more than the server. I can’t fathom why they would ditch the server, the client however, has been a thorn in Groupwise users sides for years now.
The proof of this can be demonstrates many ways:
1. They have taken the time to port GW.
2. They are adding a ton to the next GW7 products, incorporating iFolder and other impressive technologies.
3. They have been busy porting Evolution to support GW
4. They just anounced that evolution will be ported to Windows.
So the groupwise server isn’t going anywhere, but is going to see a lot of change. Of course GW is a packaged product, with both the client and server packaged together so maybe this is why they described it that way.
I can’t imagine why people would be upset over this. They are taking a very stable, full-featured server product and adding a much better client.
What’s to worry?
who would have thought that was a Cnet article.
they saw a 5% revenue increase over the year prior and they have attributed it to their linux products more than anything. Guess it’s not going so bad for them afterall.
The future has not looked this bright for Novell in a very long time. Anyone who is paying any attention whatsoever to what they are doing knows that neither GroupWise nor NetWare are going anywhere anytime soon – I think that this news.com.com.com.com article is just typical of their FUD.
These products represent two of the main profit centres for the company, the installed-based for them is *enormous* and the monies they make from support contracts for these are not insignificant either. I think they have the right strategy moving more heavily into Open Source, let’s hope that their execution of that strategy is equally as impressive.
Welcome to change. Change is good. DOS was purty darn stable too…..but……change wsa needed. I don’t really like the Novell line of products (nothing technical, necessarily, more personal reasons), and I think Novell has made an extremely intelligent move. (Seems a bit like OSX, doesn’t it?). Moving to a stronger, more widely-accepted OS core will help them gain market visibility as well as increased community support.
Good Job Novell, even I don’t personally like your products.
They stuck with IPX too long as well and by time they went to TCP/IP taking the time to migrate to it brought up questions of why not just use something else at this point (windows, linux).
IP was supported in older versions of Netware. Pure IP was introducted in Netware 5. This is kind of inaccurate. Oh, and there is nothing wrong with IPX on internal networks.
I still have a place in my heart for Netware and my CNE certificate will always remind me of the years BL (Before Linux) and how fast the ‘norm’ can change. But time to put Novell down in my opinion. Sad seeing them latch onto the Linux chain. Sort of like watching Jerry Rice get traded to the Seatle Seahawks for a 7th round pick.
So Netware is their ‘only’ product? Yeah, let’s put down eDirectory in favor of OpenLDAP or Active Directory! (sad, SAD directory services in comparison) Let’s use read-write-execute-user-group-world permissions instead of the fine-grained file and directory permissions featured in Netware since the beginning! Or compression! Who needs compression! Disk space is cheap! (yeah, RIGHT!) And nobody could EVER POSSIBLY find a use for iPrint or iFolder!
GroupWise is an excellent product – I’ve used it for many years but recently had to use Outlook 2003 connected to Exchange 2003 and didn’t like it at all. It seemed much slower than GroupWise is in every operation I used. Searches were often 10 times longer than a GroupWise search.
It is time for NetWare as an OS to fade away. Patching it introduces twice as many bugs as the patches were designed to fix and often lead to quick ABENDs. Have you ever looked at the release notes for a Novell Client version and what it ‘fixed’? Why on Earth can’t they just get a client that works and quick messing it up – I’ll never know. This version doesn’t allow Excel and Word files to be open by multiple users Read-Only, the next version up stops multi-user databases from being open by more than one person, etc.
I am a big fan of Novell ACLs but the client has been a thorne in my side for years and will be gone if OES supports Samba logins as a Domain Controller and not Workgroup style access.
4. They just anounced that evolution will be ported to Windows
Really? That’s funny because I heard that months ago, maybe even a year ago. In fact version 2.0 was supposed to be released for both linux and windows. I’m still waiting and I’ll believe it when I see it.
This article is complete crap. I work very closely with Novell, run a Novell oriented network, and have close friends that are Novell Gold resellers. I can tell you that this guy is way off his rocker.
OES comes in 2 flavors, (Netware 7 and SLES9 based), and both can do the exact same thing. Yes this is the last revision of Netware kernel, but so what…seriously. Everything that is Netware has been ported to Linux. I have the Linux flavor of OES running right here right now on my test network and its fantastic and does everything Netware 6.5 did plus a lot more.
As for Groupwise, relax it isn’t going anywhere. In fact Novell has already ported the server portions to Linux, created and released Linux and OSX Groupwise clients, upgraded Evolution to support it, announced Evolution for Windows project, and from what I’ve heard thus far…..Groupwise 7 is going to be VERY good.
If you want to worry then fine you have the right to do that, but keep the FUD to yourself please. Novell is still a billion dollar software company that isn’t going away. As a Novell user these are the most exciting times in a while IMHO.
It will be a sad day when Netware finally dies.
I think it would be really nice if Novell were to make Netware Open Source / GPL when they finally cease supporting it.
”
It will be a sad day when Netware finally dies.
I think it would be really nice if Novell were to make Netware Open Source / GPL when they finally cease supporting it.
”
Most companies can’t just turn around and Open Source a product. Most of the time there is third party code in the program who’s owners would not want their code being released for download on the net. It costs money for companies to root out this code.
If Novell did release Netware as Open Source, it would probably cost them millions to root this code out (just guessing, maybe I’m wrong) and they would not receive any direct financial reward for this action, so I doubt they will
Besides which — does anyone really care about the Novell Netware kernel?
It’s NDS, etc. people care about — and these have been ported to Linux, and some portions of these have been opened up under the GPL or other licenses as part of their work on Linux.
Really?
No, there was no announcement. Nat Friedman wrote in his blog that Novell hired someone to try to port it.
The neither have a timeframe nor do they know if it is feasible.
Sometimes headlines of news articles lead to wrong interpretations if one does’t read the article itself.
Seems poster cendrizzi has fallen into this trap
Do you remember 10 years ago as MS sponsored FUD that IBM will discontinue support for OS/2. Who is now supporting Win95?
” No, there was no announcement. Nat Friedman wrote in his blog that Novell hired someone to try to port it.
The neither have a timeframe nor do they know if it is feasible. ”
They are not “trying” to port it, they ARE porting it. Its very feasible. The only problem I see with Evolution on Windows is the extreme Linux fans who have thus far showed discontent and are being unfavorable to it. Personally what I think Novell should do is Make a version of Evolution for the enterprise that has the GroupWise features and formal support. As for NetWare, dont kill the NetWare brand just change the core of it to Linux.
“In particular, some customers highlighted the risk to GroupWise, Novell’s e-mail and collaboration tool…”
Thank God…
A good reason to get rid of GrotWise!
Not even Novell people like it!
True, there are details to be worked out and there is a lot of stuff that would be difficult to port (if I understand correctly the bonobo stuff will be the trickiest). But there has been a lot of interest in doing this for some time but until now they actually hired a guy that is going to make it a project.
Will it happen for sure. No. But the chances just got a whole lot better. It would certainly make things a lot easier for them as well since they are currently supporting 3 different clients for GW.
<quote>If Novell did release Netware as Open Source, it would probably cost them millions to root this code out (just guessing, maybe I’m wrong) and they would not receive any direct financial reward for this action, so I doubt they will</quote>
Actually, that’s one of the reasons that we’re still waiting for a Novell Client for Linux: the Novell Client uses RSA encryption, and RSA sure ain’t going Open Source anytime soon.
Um.. I’ve met quite a number of people who were unhappy with the GroupWise client. Most of ’em were using GroupWise as if it was Lookout. That doesn’t work too well. However, if you teach them the strengths of GroupWise, they’re soon extremely happy with it.
Theres always the famous ‘gadugi’ Netware clone/Linux hybrid.
While gadugi’s website got taken down because of the spurious claims Jeff Merkey made on the subject of IP laundering with the legislative support of the Cherokee Nation, I’m sure that somewhere, out there in the middle of a peyote plantation in the desert – a new incarnation of Netware is ready to spring, phoenix-like – from the ashes of the old.
Seriously, it is quite likely that Jeff Merkey does have a pretty big chunk of Netware functionality in his OS, and that should Novell put Netware out to pasture, and if he can a) keep his mouth shut and b) avoid stealing the work of others – he might actually have a legitimate business on his hands.
This article is stupid.
I don’t see the Groupwise product going anywhere.
As others have stated it’s already been ported
to the Linux platform. Maybe they’ll drop the MS
version! And to say that Novell will just drop
the NetWare kernel is absurd. They’ve been
developing the NetWare kernel way before Linus started
with Linux. I just don’t think this will happen any time soon.
Maybe in 10 years or 20 as the article suggest. But to start
talking about the demise of a product in 20 years it stupid.
That’s like saying my car will need to be replaced in the next 20 years. Duh! I’m sure it will need to be. I hope technology does not stay in our current state 20 years from now.
If the NetWare kernel does get dropped, I think they will let Linus in on some NetWare kernel secrets. Then the NetWare kernel will live on floating around in the Linux kernel. Maybe they’re already doing that? Linus was at Brainshare 2004! I hate rediculous FUD like this. arg!
mod parent up. I’d take AD over openldap, although novell’s is better.
I am pretty confident that they will successfully port it, I just wanted to point out that it was not an announcement, only some Novell employee mentioning it in his blog.
IMHO developers blogging about a project is something completely different than the company announcing a product.