Contrary to some thoughts I did not fall off the planet or have my blogging account locked down, just got really busy in the last quarter.

In that time I spent many hours with our customers, partners and sales professionals on calls and I kept hearing this comment that frankly really disappointed me.

We aren’t moving to OES 2 from NetWare because it’s a) too hard or b) so hard we really think we should look at alternatives.

What?

Let’s step back a minute.  When I hear the term NetWare, I always think of NetWare 1.X my first exposure and the amazing for its time NetWare 2.05 that helped me make this industry into a career.  When NetWare 3 came out I started to think differently about NetWare and by the time NetWare 4 was released my perspective had changed completely.  By this time I saw NetWare as a set of services that created value for end users and for corporate IT.  The underlying OS while interesting was not the most important part and the reality even then was that the services were where the real value was.  Organizations used NetWare not because of that screaming fast 32 bit engine but because of the services, like file, print, Novell Directory Services and all the other value in the box.

A lot of time has passed since then, with NetWare evolving the set of services through the remainder of its life.  But like happens everywhere, an evolutionary spurt had to take place.  We wanted 64 bit CPU support.  We wanted the ability to run lots of commercial and open source applications.  We wanted more scale.  We wanted the file systems, the print services, the directory, the network tools like DNS and DHCP.  We didn’t want to be tied to closed kernel.  Open Enterprise Server has delivered on those requirements and in the current release delivers a much richer experience than has ever happened.  Today we can do the things we could not do on the old NetWare stack.  We have client independence.  We have massively scalable 64 bit computing.  We have the ability to run virtualization without spending one thin dime on additional software.  We have the ability for every OES Linux server to run applications, over 3,000 are certified.  We have a rich development framework from the open source community.  Stop and think about that.  Is there any other server environment that has demonstrated this level of evolutionary enhancement in so short a time?  No.

And with the release of SP2 we raise the bar even higher by delivering file system audit controls for NSS on Linux, by gaining support from Citrix for the incredible Domain Services for Windows, a new FTP gateway and other enhancements.

Our customers have mixed environments.  Open Enterprise Server 2 is designed to function in mixed environments and does so more effectively than any other alternative out there.  As we enter our 2010 fiscal year I offer the following challenge.  When a customer or partner suggests a decommit or a concern about OES 2, don’t say ok I understand.  Ask why.  Ask for an appointment to have a conversation on the subject.  Invite Juan Carlos Cerrutti (there I did it, I volunteered him with asking) or myself.  We will help you.  We may not win every case, but we will win.

Be confident, be strong, be Novell.  Novell team members should leverage the Employee Enablement page (built with Novell Teaming) at https://teaming.innerweb.novell.com/ssf/a/do?p_name=ss_forum&p_action=1&action=view_ws_listing&binderId=68144 for consolidated materials.

Until next time, peace.

Ross