“On the eve of Brainshare 2000, Stewart Nelson, chief operating
officer of Novell Inc., talked with Barbara Darrow, CRN Editor of
Investigative Reports, about strategy, Active Directory and
Linux.”
“CRN: What has the response been to Novell’s
strategy of making Novell Directory Services (NDS)-related services
the focal point of the company?
Stewart Nelson: We laid out at Brainshare last
year this idea of having the directory glue the network together
and the fact that we were not going to be a one-platform directory
company but a multiplatform directory company. We delivered on that
promise,we released NDS, eDirectory on Unix [Solaris] with Linux to
follow in about a month; obviously NetWare 4 and 5; and on
[Microsoft Corp.’s Windows] NT. On the day Windows 2000 shipped, we
announced that eDirectory would also be running on Windows 2000.
…”
“CRN: What about Linux? How real is it? How
much will you support it?
Nelson: We haven’t said much other than announcing
NDS for it. I think it’s real. Any time you take a company like Red
Hat, which goes public and [its stock price] goes up [dramatically]
in its first day, . . . you take it seriously because there’s a lot
of excitement and enthusiasm. It reminds me of when Netscape went
public. [Linux] poses a huge threat on some fronts to NT.
. . . I don’t think it does to Novell because we’re more
inclusive.”