With the announcement last week that Novell Inc. has tapped Linux as the migration path for NetWare, users said they finally have reason to believe that the folks in Novell’s executive suite are as savvy as its engineers. NetWare 7 will put services on both OS kernels as means of providing migration option.
Novell Plan for NetWare-to-Linux Path
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Novell has to do something like this. Many people who are new to IT don’t know how robust Netware is. The only problem with Novell is that they are TOO EXPENSIVE! They have this idea “If we build it, they will come”. They have to market their product and give discounts et cetra. We are migrating away from at the School District because MS Windows is cheaper!
This won’t help unless they advertise, bring down the price, try to make eDirectory (NDS) the standard even on MACS! They have the best system but, they are no longer the only game in town. The younger crowd does not even know they exist.
I agree with you that Novell is rock-solid stable, fast and secure. It is an engineering masterpiece. It is prohibitively expensive.
My beef with Novell is that they don’t provide good diagnostic tools. I’m partial to Linux because it’s free. Linux (and commercial Unix) has tons of diagnostic tools. If something doesn’t work, it’s fairly easy to figure it out. On Netware, if something doesn’t work…you have to sacrifice to Novell three bulls and 10 chickens before they’ll give you the fix. And even then it’s often an “you need our latest product” instead of actually giving the administrator info He needs to fix the problem.
The downside to Novell’s stability is that 3rd party NLMs aren’t as rock-solid…this makes the need of better diagnostic tools greater.
Gentoo Linux is my choice. It takes more time to set up than Netware or NT, but (when administered properly) it is just as rock-solid and fast…and it’s free…always.
It is expensive… but for larger businesses (especially with a WAN) the second-to-none manageability alone is worth it. No other NOS can touch Novell’s management capabilities ,especially with Zenworks.
I do agree, however, that the higher price is going to drive people to migrate to other platforms, especially for smaller businesses. The latest fiasco (giving Netware licenses to small businesses but then requiring them to have it professionally installed) is another huge mistake. Since smaller businesses (those with less than 15 employees, let’s say) aren’t likely to go with Netware anyway, why not give them free licenses with no strings attached? This way they at least have their foot in the door if those smaller businesses expand.