The litmus test for Novell's comeback will naturally be whether or not customers take to its new open-source offerings. For existing NetWare customers and Unix users, OES should be appealing. It preserves the NetWare services they're used to and provides a migration to Linux that's transparent to users. It also lets customers use new hardware technologies that NetWare didn't support, such as HP server blades, and it provides the flexibility to use open-source, proprietary, Linux-specific, or .NET applications. By comparison, Windows, HP-UX, and Solaris all support a more limited range of programs.
The IT department at Comair airlines, a NetWare customer since 1996, was concerned about Novell for a time. "We're primarily an HP hardware shop and Itanium servers were becoming more popular, but there was no support for Itanium in the NetWare kernel," notes Roger Fenner, infrastructure services manager at the company. Now, using OES, the airline can virtualize and run Windows, HP-UX, and SUSE Linux on one piece of HP hardware with virtual partitions. It's currently using HP's hardware partitioning to do this, though next year SUSE Enterprise Linux will also provide support for virtual servers and virtual storage using Xen software.
Comair is in the midst of migrating its backend servers to Linux, attracted by the OS's flexibility to use any kind of software, open-source or proprietary. For the few applications that require a Windows file and print server, Comair will run Samba on Linux to provide the service. Fenner, for one, is a devoted Novell fan. "I think they've always had a great technical vision and been on the leading edge of leveraging technology to advance business," he says. "I'm happy to see that Novell's gone with the open-source direction and that there's a clear future."
But Windows shops are unlikely to turn to Novell. The City of St. Petersburg, FL, used to be a Novell NetWare customer, but two years ago it converted to Windows Server. Senior Network Systems Engineer Todd Giedraitis compares implementing and maintaining the Windows and Novell server OSs to two types of car: "With the Windows car, you get in, put the key in the ignition, and it starts. With the Novell car, you have to cast magic spells on it, crawl in through the trunk to get to the front, pull the steering wheel out of the glove compartment, somehow attach it to the car, then pray for four hours before it starts," he says. "The only way we'd go back to Novell is if it looked exactly like Microsoft Windows Server 2003."
Exceptions to such pro-Windows attitudes include companies that can't afford Windows, or have had serious security issues that have sickened them of Windows. And as mentioned, the special-use and emerging markets Novell has identified may well gravitate toward OES.
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