Novell: Linux is our future
Published: 13 Aug 2003 13:30 BST
Windows NT and OS/2 are still around and there is still support. But in most cases, you have to end up paying for it. Is that where NetWare the operating system is going to be in five years?
In five years, NetWare the OS will continue to be maintained by Novell. It will continue to be a supported platform. We will continue to do bug fixes and continue to do some features, as they are required. To directly answer your question, if it's going to go into some maintenance mode -- I can't answer that question. I can't see five years out. I wish I could.
If I'm a new customer and I want to buy NetWare applications running on the NetWare OS?
Then we will sell it to you and we will maintain it, and we will be happy about that.
But if we are talking about the application side of NetWare, is it more likely that I'll be getting NetWare with a Linux kernel underneath?
Will you be able to mix and match? You make the choice. That's what we are saying. You want to run those services on NetWare? Then fine, we'll support that. You want to run them on the Linux kernel? That's fine too. And the big advantage is that when you go to print from the Linux implementation, it will be completely compatible and interoperable with your NetWare implementation.
That is the beauty of this transition, because the Linux operating system is a lot like what we are used to. Strategically, it makes sense to us and it makes a lot of sense to our customers. You can do both, maintain both, and add functionality to both. But our commitment to NetWare has not waned by any stretch of the imagination and our commitment to Linux is certainly growing.
It also seems a trend needs to be reversed. NetWare has dropped from 70 percent of the market a little over a decade ago to 11 percent today.
I wouldn't call it reversing a trend. I have always referred to it as an opportunity. Linux is an opportunity for Novell to grow. It's that simple.
What are we really trying to do? Stop people from going to Microsoft. We don't want to push Microsoft servers. We don't want people to put in Unix servers. We want them to add NetWare or Linux servers.
On the Ximian side of things, you have a lot of software that could conflict. For example, GroupWise and Evolution. Where is all that going?
Nothing is going to die. That's beauty of this acquisition. Everything that Ximian was working on was a natural complement to what we were already doing. That's why it made so much sense to us. The only thing that's different is that we gain a desktop.
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