01.12.08
Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part III: General Novell News and Novell Partners
Novell got mentioned in a variety of different contexts in the past week. The company received its share of coverage and presence in the following article.
Novell Inc. will work on differentiating its identity-driven systems management architecture, focusing on workstation configuration management and endpoint security from its ZENworks family, said the firm’s Canadian chief technology officer, Ross Chevalier. “We will also continue to create awareness on the importance of provisioning and user self-service as mechanisms to increase simplicity and thereby improve security.” In 2008, Novell’s commitment to the channel will be “greater than it’s been for years,” as dedicated partner execs and inside partner managers will work with partners to ensure they’re equipped to deliver the vendor’s solutions, Chevalier added.
Here is Novell mentioned among the growth factors in Ireland where there has been quite a bit of activity in the past year [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].
The investments in 2007 included VMware opening an EMEA Technical Support Centre in Cork, Microsoft announcing a EUR360 million EMEA Data Centre and Novell established an EMEA TeleWeb Operation in Dublin.
Fomer SUSE executives seem to be inheriting top roles at Open-Xchange.
Two of pre-Novell SUSE’s top executives are taking the open-source groupware company Open-Xchange.
Rafael Laguna, who played a major role in merging SUSE with Novell, is now Open-Xchange’s president and CEO. And former SUSE CEO Richard Seibt is now OX’s chairman of the board. While at SUSE, Laguna and Seibt worked closely together and are widely credited for helping SUSE’s transformation into one of the world’s major Linux distributors.
Here is some news about Novell’s collaboration with Fujitsu on biometric login solutions. This was first introduced around the time of LinuxWorld 2007.
Fujitsu Microelectronics and 123ID, Inc. have developed biometric login solutions to allow database users access to Novell eDirectory applications running on Linux, NetWare and Windows. This biometric solution replaces password authentication with eDirectory logon, which provides uncompromised security, capability and pricing.
Last but not least, Novell’s CEO, Ron Hovsepian, will give a talk at GWAVACon Americas. It comes later this month, so maybe there will be a video too.
Will Address Novell Strategy and Collaboration Offerings at January 2008 Conference
Next up: OpenSUSE news from the past week. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.