NEW YORK — Novell CEO Jack Messman says Novell is done with UnitedLinux.
During the LinuxWorld Expo here, Messman's talked up the beta release of
GroupWise for Linux; membership in the Eclipse developers' group; ELA3+
certification for the newly acqured SUSE Linux; and Linux porting relationships with
BEA, Veritas
and Egnera.
During a Q&A at the end of a Novell press conference, Messman said that “there's
no value to us to work in in the UnitedLinux space,” now that SCO has opted
out of Linux. Messman added, though, that there's no reason why Novell can't
continue its partnerships with both Asia-based TurboLinux and Latin-America-based
Conectiva, the two other founding members of the Linux industry association.
Novell also today joined another industry group: the
IBM-spearheaded Eclipse Project. Novell will start using Eclipse company-wide
as its cross-platform IDE, said Chris Stone, Novell vice chairman – Office of
the CEO.
Novell officials also told reporters that GroupWise for Linux is part of a
long-term strategy to expand Novell’s position in the messaging space by luring
new users from Linux and Unix as well as Windows NT, an OS that Microsoft
will stop supporting by the end of this year. Stone acknowledged that Microsoft
Exchange, long-time nemesis to GroupWare, is one big target of the strategy.
Stone said that Novell will migrate to a plug-and-play environment
encompassing a range of messaging alternatives, including Novell's current GroupWise and
NetMail; SUSE's OpenExchange; and Ximian's Evolution client. Novell will aim
OpenExchange at SMBs and GroupWise at enterprises, for example,
SUSE Linux achieved ELA3+ certification in only four months, said Doc
Shanker, IBM Linux security architect. Ordinarily, a process like this would take
several years, according to Shanker. Next, SUSE and Novell will strive for ELA4,
said Richard Sebit, former CEO of SUSE and now a top executive with Novell..
The newly unveiled relationships with the ISVs are part of a push by Novell
to obtain more applications for Linux, according to Stone.
Officials predicted that the three new partners will certify first on SUSE
Linux, and after that on other Linux distributions.
