Novell, the likely comeback kid

It`s not often that a company comes back after a crushing blow like the one delivered to Novell by Microsoft. For 10 years until last year, it was with a feeling of nightmarish recurrence that IT journals reported on migration upon migration, from NetWare to Windows. One of the most definitive examples was Telkom`s departure from the once proud software platform in the late 1990s. Novell seemed a spent force.

But companies, like solicitous parents, are sometimes lucky enough to be carried through frailty by decent offspring. Novell`s best work has always been excellent, even superior technology, which has inspired two decades of fanatical staff and customers into caring for the company. It is these factors that are contriving to bring about its promised resurgence, together with the company`s timely jump onto the open source bandwagon, and its coupling this with experience in sewing together patchwork enterprises.

Still, it`s not a case of simply rising to former glory on the strength of good software or even a good business model. One reason is that the spoils are not there for the taking. They now belong to Microsoft, and Novell`s reinstatement would require unseating its arch-rival, which happens to be the IT world`s most feared adversary.

Secondly, customers are asking many questions of Novell, in the areas of enterprise-readiness and legal action, future roadmaps, capacity and proof-of-concept in-house adoption of Linux. The company`s chairman and CEO, Jack Messman, impressed many by giving each issue due consideration at BrainShare Europe, Novell`s annual technology conference.

But not even these questions are the end of it. Old issues that have plagued Novell before are coming back to challenge the company again, and this time one has hope it will get it right.

Old issues that have plagued Novell before are coming back to challenge the company again, and this time one has hope it will get it right.

Carel Alberts, Special Editions Editor, ITWeb Brainstorm

Scalability has been a criticism since the late 1990s, when Linux first showed signs of becoming the "uber-buzz in the industry. Then, Oracle added support in 1998, today boasting that this makes Linux "unbreakable", and later IBM also came to the party. Today, with SUSE Linux 9 based on the 2.6 kernel, Linux is as scalable, robust, secure and resilient as you like, so we can move on.

Much has been said about the new training programmes as well as migration support, executed by partners locally, and Novell`s famed ecosystem appears to stand up to scrutiny. But it`s the same old story with global vendors. European marketing executives admit not enough is being invested into Africa, and this time round, we`re not shutting up about it. Africa needs Linux more than anyone, and it`s time vendors gave the region its due consideration.

Of course, it doesn`t end there. Manageability is something that has been thrown at Linux vendors for a while. Messman`s answer is to be found in the extensive identity-driven software stack surrounding the core Novell Linux enterprise server foundation, together forming a comprehensive resource management solution series.

Indemnification takes care of the SCO debate, and common code-based development ensures cross-platform interoperability. The company has its own vertical market solutions and technical solutions that continue to lead the way in secure identity management, but still, some pesky issues remain.

One`s heart sinks to hear Novell championing a new buzz called identity-driven solutions, as ephemeral-sounding as directory services once did. Novell, the popular wisdom dictated ad nauseam in the previous millennium, was never much good at marketing. Microsoft, by contrast, was fantastic at it, always has been, and this has been the company`s edge.

To go back to directories, it was a difficult concept to begin with, explained with much white-boarding back in its infancy, and still few people got it. Microsoft did a better job, and today it enjoys recognition after a hesitant start with Windows 2000. Could 'identity-drivenness` also put Novell out of reach of ordinary minds?

Thankfully not. Novell is building on offerings it has had for some time (ZenWorks, eDirectory, exteNd, Nsure and others) and is merely saying what it`s been saying all along - that metadata about a person or resource`s identity needs to be central, so that changes are replicated everywhere, once they`re made.

It is also saying what the rest of the industry is saying, with varying degrees of credibility - that by tying together and managing separate in-house or federated resources (in trusted communities), based on a service-oriented architecture, these can be pooled together, automatically reconfigured and provisioned. The result is intelligent, service-enabled and identity-aware infrastructure - in short, the on-demand or adaptive enterprise. Easy!

There is, however, one final criticism that remains: like some other vendors, Novell threatens to fall into the trap of information-overload, something it can`t really avoid if it`s forced to play in all enterprise arenas. An A-Z of its wares has several products for almost every letter.

However, a chunk of that can be grouped into identity-driven solutions, which hopefully helps its marketing drive.

Here`s betting Novell will get it right and regain at least some of its erstwhile lustre within a reasonable timeframe.