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Event
Summary
NEW YORK, Jan. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL - news),
a leading provider of Net infrastructure software, today announced support
for Sun's newly launched Solaris* 8 operating environment. In cooperation
with Sun, Novell delivers Net Services solutions for Solaris such as NDS
eDirectory(TM) and GroupWise. These cross-platform Novell solutions run
across all major operating systems, providing critical infrastructure
for integrating Solaris platform with other Net resources.
Market
Impact
Novell's key offering for the new Solaris Operating Environment is the
NDS eDirectory, which is based on the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
(LDAP) industry standard. According to Novell the NDS eDirectory will
eliminate the gray area between the Enterprise and the Internet. The product
will allow clients and partners to utilize the Internet or World Wide
Web as the primary source for conducting business.
Novell
has displayed industry acclaimed Directory integration for the past four
years, coupled with a competent web server. Novell has also developed
NDS for Microsoft Windows NT, which prompted Microsoft to state that they
would not support any NT server with Novell's NDS installed. Needless
to say, Microsoft clients concerned with the daunting spectacle of losing
support for either a whole or part of their network operating system (NOS)
never installed the Netware product. In Novell's defense, the product
did and does work seamlessly under Windows NT.
We
do not see Sun Solaris administrators implementing any Novell NDS package.
The Sun Solaris 8 operating system is a 64 Bit LDAP enabled system, which
is far from needy in the Directory Services arena. We do not anticipate
any anti-competitive measures which would emanate from Sun, in light of
Novell's offering, simply because we believe the product will not sell
into UNIX shops.
Novell
has also compiled a version of the GroupWise Messaging/Groupware server
specifically for the Sun Solaris 8 operating system. We do not see the
demand for GroupWise on Sun nor do we see the demand for GroupWise as
a collaboration server. We view these product releases as wasted Research
and Development funds for Novell.
User
Recommendations
UNIX
shops have no need for NDS eDirectory. With Sun's robust DNS and LDAP
enabled system, we fail to see the advantages of implementing NDS on Sun.
Furthermore, any mail system running on a Sun Solaris server will most
likely be performing one or two functions, routing and hosting.
Sendmail,
Inc. has a very strong foothold on the UNIX mail market with a lion's
market share of 75%. Sendmail will also be expanding its current offering
through strategic partnerships with messaging vendors within the Unified
Messaging (UM) space. If UNIX administrators want a well-rounded collaboration
system, the appropriate route will be through Sendmail Pro coupled with
UM add-ons. Users should avoid implementing either the NDS eDirectory
or GroupWise products on Sun Solaris 8.