bucy wrote:
] ]
] ] Novell said Wednesday that NetWare 6.5 will include
] ] features for business continuity, open source, Web
] ] application services and "virtual office" capabilities to
] ] reduce network costs and complexity while giving users
] ] around-the-clock access.
]
] I guess I knew that they hadn't folded but I didn't realize
] that they were still doing active development. Up until NT4
] or so, Netware was king ... who uses it now?
]
] And it still seems to be their same, old, expensive licensing
] scheme...

I enjoying bursting this type of bubble. Since the release of Netware 6, Novell has changed to a new licensing scheme that is far far better than their old one. Their previous scheme is what Microsoft currently uses. Each user must have a license for each server, so if you have 200 users and three servers you will have to have 600 licenses to function. Novell now uses 1 license per connection no matter how many servers. So using the same model we would only need 200 licenses.

I actually got to see the virtual office product in action this past weekend. Many people will see it like the online class system inside of the Blackboard web application. It holds a forum for the members of the virtual team, a java chat application similar to IRC, access to your email, a shared calendar and shared bookmarks.

Also they have revamped a product called "Branch Office" server. It uses rsync and a few other open source utilities to maintain a remote office server. Holding a copy of the files on the remote server on the main network server. There is a good deal more information on the Novell web site.