Novell CEO Eric Schmidt used his first visit to SA to explain his company`s vision of Internet domination, addressing a large audience of customers, analysts and journalists.
Claiming that the thick client/thick server architecture has had its day, Schmidt expanded on his common theme of a distributed architecture involving thin clients, fatter servers, and the Internet as the common interface. He hopes that Novell`s products - built around the NDS eDirectory platform - will help drive this vision. He calls the architecture One-Net.
"People who are still against the distributed architecture have a vested interest in the fat client/server architecture," he claims. What will drive the revolution, Novell hopes, will be directories.
"The system must know me and know my preferences," he continues. "Due to privacy issues, however, the profiles must be under the control of consumers, hence directories."
Novell has been pushing the directory concept since it released NDS with Netware 5. Since then it has attempted to change its focus from its network operating system to its directory. Now the services around the directory are the focus of the business, and NDS eDirectory is taking the concept to the Internet.
This strategy is underlined in Novell`s recent first quarter results. The company`s revenue from NetWare server software grew 6%, while its directory-enabled Net services applications grew 10%. Service, training and consulting revenue increased 37%.
This strategy is not unexpected from the man who believes that the Internet is "under-hyped".
One of those services, iChain, is referred to by Schmidt as "the killer app" for his eDirectory. This product allows directories from different organisations to link to one another over the Internet, helping realise the One-Net vision.
Until recently, Novell has had no real competition to its NDS directory platform, but with the release of Windows 2000 (W2K), Microsoft now has an alternative offering called Active Directory (ADS). Schmidt dismisses the technology from the company`s historical competitor, saying: "We have 100% market share and have been shipping in the market for years. Now there is a new product that no one has ever used that has 0% market share."
He adds that NDS for Windows 2000 was released on the day of the W2K launch, and it will interoperate with the competing ADS bi-directionally. Until now it was unclear whether the communication would work both ways, and many corporate organisations with an investment in NDS and a commitment to roll-out MS ADS will breathe a sigh of relief.
Schmidt put MS down again by commenting on ADS`s multi-platform limitations. "We believe that directories are heterogeneous, multi-platform applications. It will be some time before Microsoft ships ADS on any platform other than Windows 2000."
Some big-name Internet companies are already experimenting with the possibilities of eDirectory. Schmidt named CNN and AltaVista as two household brands currently using the product to offer individualised content to its users.
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