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Novell Sets Its Sights On Major Internet Role

Hopes to make NetWare LANs act like intranets
By Monua Janah and Stephanie Stahl
Issue date: March 25, 1996

Novell has unveiled a series of moves aimed at promoting distributed, "client-network" computing. The maneuvers were made in hopes of leveraging Novell's LAN installed base to expand into the Internet and corporate intranets. Now the question is whether the company can persuade users that its vi sion can yield real benefits.

Novell's plans are contingent on its ability to port its NetWare Directory Services (NDS) to other operating systems-notably Microsoft Windows NT, which is rapidly gaining market share.
At its Brainshare conference for developers in Salt Lake City last week, Novell said it will license

Sun Microsystems' Java language and Open Market Inc.'s SecureLink, a secure-transaction technology, for use in developing applications designed to run on NetWare. As the first part of its developers' initiative, known as Net2000, Novell also will enable developers to use scripting languages such as Visual Basic to write such applications.

Novell hopes that by using such applications on NetWare and linking them to a World Wide Web server, the 50 million NetWare users worldwide will, in effect, turn their LANs into intranets.

The Orem, Utah, company also plans to make NDS a standard directory for managing components such as Java applets on distributed networks , where applications would reside on various servers.

"The star applications will be Java-based, will be based on the network, and will make use of Novell's network services," Novell chairman and CEO Robert Frankenberg said in a speech at Brainshare.

Eric Schmidt, Sun's chief technology officer, concedes that the success of Novell's strategy isn't guaranteed. "Novell's bet is that NDS can become ubiquitous as a directory service beyond its NetWare base," he says. "This is a good bet, but it's not proven."

Novell executives admit that an NDS port to NT is unlikely before 1997. While some analysts laud Novell for articulating a clear Internet strategy, others say the company is merely jumping on the Java bandwagon. But Novell points out that it is the first to license the technology for a network operating system.

Some users are lukewarm about Novell's intranet plans. "I expect administering LANs will actually get worse," says Greg Hick s, a network engineer at United Parcel Service's internal airline in Atlanta, who manages 150 networks with 75 servers. "But at least it starts people thinking about how to use the Internet for more than just information."

While Novell sharpens its Internet strategy, it's also working on its next release of NetWare. The release was originally expected to roll out this summer, but now Novell executives say it probably won't be ready until the fall. It's expected to include symmetric multiprocessing, distributed print services, and IP support.

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