Also in the first quarter of this year, Novell rolled out Open Enterprise Server (OES) 1.0, which essentially repackages basic NetWare services for the Linux platform. This is an achievement in that it's a real, functional product, whereas its predecessor for the Unix platform, UnixWare, was considered vaporware. While at present OES doesn't do anything that NetWare couldn't do, Novell says version 2.0 of OES, due out in the first quarter of 2006, will introduce virtual server and virtual storage capabilities.
At about the same time, the company will roll out SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10. For this release, Novell is upgrading and updating hardware drivers and providing further integration with various hardware platforms. It will support Xen virtual machine technology so that multiple SLESs can run on one machine, as well as offer virtual storage. Meanwhile, Novell is breaking out the clustering and business continuity features it created for NetWare and will be offering them as a separate product for Linux platforms this fall.
Novell's GroupWise, which is third in the collaboration market behind Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes Domino, is also being affected by the move to open source. With its Hula project, Novell is working on an open-source version of NetMail, the lightweight, Web-based messaging and calendaring alternative (or companion) to GroupWise. In many cases, Novell will sell these products together. For example, Southwest Airlines has about 5,000 employees using the heavier-weight GroupWise, while another 10,000 employees, including pilots and ground support personnel who don't require as many messaging features, use NetMail.
Novell's primary Linux server competitor is market leader Red Hat. Since Novell's acquisition of SUSE, the product has gained a modest two percent of market share. Novell's greatest strength against Red Hat is its global network of 10 native-language support centers around the world, staffed by 700 people--more employees than Red Hat has all told. Novell also has many more applications to run on its Linux server than Red Hat does, and it offers a mix of open- and closed-source offerings (for instance, its identity management software is proprietary). So while Red Hat stands for open-source purity and relies on revenue from services and support, Novell employs a hybrid open/closed approach to software and should increasingly be able to make more money licensing software for Linux. Behind the scenes, the two companies' engineers work together on several open-source projects.
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