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Schmidt told Network Computing that Novell is negotiating with several metadirectory providers to add metadirectory functionality to its Novell Directory Services offering. At the Gartner Group Predicts conference in San Diego on Wednesday Schmidt said, "The reality is that even though our directory solves problems much better than our competitors, it's incredibly important we have some form of synchronization or metadirectory services. This is a religious issue in the company precisely because our d irectory is so good. We concluded, or I concluded, that our customers would be better served with some form of alliance over metadirectories that would not take away from the strength and scalability of NDS. We are negotiating such deals, literally today."

The new direction follows more than a year of internal debate within Novell, which initially concluded--to the chagrin of many large businesses--that NDS should be positioned as "the" directory for networking. Novell then embarked on a series of alliances with OS providers aimed at bringing the directory to alternative operating systems. Novell also developed its own NDS support for NT. Novell ran into problems, though, when it became clear that its partners viewed NDS as just one more beauty contestant on the directory walkway.

"This is a huge step for Novell to admit they aren't the center of the directory universe," said Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald.

Network executives attending the show loudly applauded Schmidt's new NDS direction, saying that metadirectory functionality is a very important issue in the larger assessment now being made by many large companies on whether to phase out Novell's NetWare in favor of the industry momentum toward Microsoft NT.

Greg Kozak of Hewitt Associates said, "a key aspect in Novell's survival is directory services, and the stronger Novell makes these services the better." Hewitt is a large human resources, consulting and analysis company, with a network based on IBM 5390 systems, Sun Solaris and NetWare services. Kozak has been actively evaluating Hewitt's 8,000-user commitment to NetWare given its increasing use of NT and the need to support two different operating systems.

An important issue for the company is the effect of multiple systems and directories on internal and external user network logins--which can take up to 20 minutes.

"I think a metadirectory that provides synchronization or full metadirectory functionality is a good value--the kind of functionality that is critical for future pu rchases," said Kozak.

Schmidt said the timeframe for getting metadirectory functionality out the door on NDS was yesterday. "We are late. It's important we deliver this quickly with high quality. Since September we have had a constant stream of products." Schmidt said that if Novell could negotiate a deal, test the functionality and get it out the door in 24 hours it would do so.

Gartner Group analysts put Novell in the strongest position of all the directory and metadirectory providers--especially given their own assessment that Microsoft's NT 5.0, which includes Microsoft's next generation Active Directory, won't become generally available until the second quarter of 1999. They don't expect the new OS and Directory to be considered stable by most businesses until at least nine months after that. This, combined with the resource drain presented by Year 2000 issues, means that Gartner doesn't expect to see widespread deployments until at least the middle of 2000.

Prior to Schmidt's announcement, MacDonald told attendees that none of the directory or metadirectory providers possess all of the attributes needed to constitute a logical buy for large businesses, with Novell close to occupying that position. With metadirectory functionality, he said, Novell's NDS would just cross the threshold into that space. MacDonald said that Novell's initial strategy didn't succeed because of a lack of strategic partner commitment. "Sun has its own strategic direction, IBM has its own product offering including an X.500 and an LDAP directory; and if you want integration, for example, single sign-on, then Novell has to do the work. "

Schmidt said that Novell is talking to a number of metadirectory providers after an intense debate within the company. He continues to see NDS as a key component of Novell's future and added that Novell has undergone a period of negative growth as it unwound the non-networking parts of its business. "The goal was to get us to a networking business that is stable and then begin to gro w." He said the end of his first year marks "an inflection point." If you "take the viability issue off the table, which is where it is now" and you've done your triage, the real growth rate comes from product cycles and "NetWare 5 will increase the demand for NetWare 4." No, says Schmidt, I'm not smoking anything, "once customers see a new roadmap, they are more comfortable in extending the franchise and slowly and carefully moving forward. The software industry is a software futures market."

Schmidt declined to elaborate on the metadirectory negotiations or to confirm earlier discussions with metadirectory provider Zoomit, but he did say the emphasis would be on systems that emphasize synchronization rather than overarching metadirectory functionality. This, he said, is primarily because of the complexity inherent in these mother-of-all-directories products.

MacDonald said the most likely partner for Novell would be NetVision Synchronicity, since NetVision already uses NDS as a focal point. Other ca ndidates, he said, might be Zoomit, Worldtalk or Isocor.

This approach, he said, is quite pragmatic and allows synchronization to tackle the cost issues associated with administration. It doesn't get you to a single directory, but it saves money on the backend and ultimately reduces the cost of ownership of multiple directories.