Linux helps Novell staunch exit flow

Posted on 22 Mar 2005 at 10:22

Novell's Linux strategy is already helping to staunch the flow of NetWare users deserting for rival platforms, that had previously been running as high as 15 per cent a year, according to Chairman and CEO Jack Messman.

Messman said that the NetWare userbase has been in decline for four to five years. Over the course of four years the toll of such a decline would leave Novell with just 52 per cent of that user base intact.

But since taking its Linux tack Messman said that the figure had fallen as 'people have decided to wait and see.'

'In the last year this dropped to around the minus eight [per cent] range,' he said.

Messman said that the exact figure for users is impossible to know. 'Novell was built on the channel, so the channel has the licences'. He said there were around 52,000 licences for NetWare worldwide, but that these licences could be for any number of seats.

Now with OpenEnterprise Server (OES) - Novell's first fruit of its dual Linux/NetWare kernel strategy shipping barely a week ago, this year's annual BrainShare conference is focussed firmly on quickly and quietly migrating its userbase to Linux before the likes of Microsoft get their claws into it.

Indeed, Microsoft last week cited a Yankee Group survey of 100 Novell customers and found that eight out of 10 businesses planned to migrate from NetWare to Microsoft Windows between 2005 and 2006.

Executive's at Novell's BrainShare conference in Salt Lake City took care during the keynotes to present its migration strategy as an open choice for its customers, but its message was clear.

The benefit of OES was described thus: 'You can migrate to Linux without having to do a migration'.

Cue video case study: a satisfied OES on Linux customer having migrated from NetWare rather than Red Hat or Microsoft.

OES is also excellent for departmental workloads, we were told - 'as good as NetWare ... it means NetWare services are available for SUSE Linux and nowhere else.'

David Patrick, Novell's General Manager for Linux and Open Source, received applause for addressing the question of 'What does [OES] mean for NetWare? It reaffirms out commitment to NetWare.' He said that commitment is 'now stronger' and that 'customers investment in NetWare is safe'.

A similar level of commitment was given to Novell's GroupWise collaboration suite. While Messman announced Novell is committed to a roadmap taking it to 2015 for the product, Novell's interest seems more focussed on its open source Hula project, based on Netmail code.

'Hula is already on course to prove that Hula is to collaboration what Apache is to web servers,' said Messman. 'Together we will build the future of collaboration, and we will do it in Open Source.'

Novell didn't announce any definite support and product lifetimes for NetWare, but even if the company is offering a reassuring arm around the shoulders of NetWare users, it is at the same time very firmly pointing them to Linux.

Author: Matt Whipp