Novell Focuses on Pervasive Computing

Bob Frankenberg has taken the management of Novell into his competent hands and created a new and highly appealing vision for his company. In doing this, he has not only figured out where to put the Novell pieces and the WordPerfect pieces he inherited, but also what to keep (and what to throw away) from previous acquisitions. More important, Frankenberg has decided upon an architectural concept for Novell that is appropriate for the company, its customers, and its partners. There must have been a lot of midnight oil burned to get this far this fast!

The new theme is Pervasive Computing; you should count on hearing this term a lot in the future. As Bob Frankenberg defined it, this new Novell architecture includes:

• Connecting to any form of information from anywhere at any time. Frankenberg immediately made it clear that the Novell vision includes all kinds of devices, including pagers, cellular telephones, office equipment (faxes and copiers), and set-top boxes.

• Linking virtual companies together so that information can move across an entire value chain, from supplier to manufacturer (value creator) to customer.

• Recognizing that a profound change in the nature of work is occurring and that soon we will think of work as an activity that occurs anywhere rather than a place we go to each day.

• All office equipment will be networked so that its resources will be conveniently (and digitally) available to everyone.

• The home is a player, too. Enter-tainment will become an interactive rather than a passive activity and electronic commerce will become a major path between buyers and sellers. (Frankenberg remarked that already there are 475,000 transactions every day on the QVC Shopping network!)

Past Drivers	Current Enablers	Current Inhibitors
Cheap Hardware	Low Cost Communications	Few Fully Network Enabled Applications and Tools
Abundant Applications	Abundance of Access Devices (including cellular phones)	Technology Hard to Learn and Use
Established Distribution Channel	Installed Base of Networks (>4M Novell NetWare LAN's)	Hard to Manage and Administer
	Standard NOS (NetWare)	Networking not yet Universal

The goal will be met when pervasive computing becomes so pervasive that it seems to disappear and simply becomes part of the normal way of doing things (like telephones and television do today).

Novell thinks a pervasive computing architecture is now possible because the nature of marketplace drivers, user needs, and available technology have all changed.

If Novell can build a model in which the current enablers are highly leveraged and the inhibitors are addressed, it should be possible to move to the new architecture. Novell’s Pervasive Computing Model is a six-part layered architecture.

Distributed Infrastructure: While Novell’s emphasis will continue to be on IPX/SPX and NetWare, TCP/IP and Unix and the newer NLSP, Novell intends the infrastructure to be broad and open and will also support other infrastructures and environments.

Distributed Network Services: NetWare services such as Messaging (MHS), File Services (NCP and NPS), and Printing (APSN) will be enhanced in function. Other supported services will include Storage, Connectivity, Directory and Security, Telephony, and Management. New classes of devices will also be supported (pagers, cellular telephones, PDA’s, faxes, etc.).

(1) Advanced Client: a 3-D GUI version of NetWare which provides navigation, browsing, and an application development environment, not only within the Novell environment, but also out onto the public networks such as the Internet.

(2) Mobile: support of roaming (detached devices from remote locations) and roving (decoupled devices within short distances of the LAN, without the need for physical connection).

(3) NetWare Connect Services will make the Wide Area Network look like your local LAN while value-added services like Notes and electronic publishing will extend its function.

(4) Embedded Networking (built-in, essentially invisible, except for the functionality, clients and services) will appear in new devices in both the home (set-top boxes, for instance) and the office (printers, copiers, faxes, etc.).

All of this access will be location-independent and will permit work to occur without physical connectivity.

Network Applications: Novell will provide applications for personal and group productivity, consumer edutainment, and appli-cation development (such as Visual AppBuilder). All applications, including the existing Novell and Novell/WordPerfect applications being integrated into the Pervasive Computing architecture, will benefit from network services like single sign-on and single, integrated directory.

Novell’s goal is to accomplish the move to pervasive computing by working with existing and new partners to make it available everywhere. In the process, Novell expects to make networked computing more robust, more mobile, broaden it to support more devices, and erase the boundaries between public and private networks and between LAN’s and WAN’s. New applications, especially networked applications, will be offered, and the management and administration of the network will become vastly easier. The real goal, of course, is to build a pervasive computing universe in which NetWare occupies the center.

Novell has a strong Operating System strategy as a part of its plans. Today, Novell offers two OS strategies:

NetWare	UnixWare
Workgroup	Client/Server
Upsizing	Downsizing
Commodity Hardware	Commodity Hardware

Novell wants to create a third strategy, a Super Network Operating System (SuperNOS), built on its New Technology Initiatives. SuperNOS would be:

Novell’s plan is to evolve all three products, NetWare, UnixWare, and the New Technology Initiatives leading to SuperNOS simultaneously.

Timetable	Strategy	Features
1994	Shared Components	SMP. ODI, IPX, TCP/IP
1995	Modular Components	Management, Security, Directory, Clustering
1996	Common Code Base and Pervasive Computing	Distributed, Fault Tolerant, Objects

• Directory services with single log-in, single point-of-data entry, and multiple application access.

• Reduced cost of ownership through the use of the NetWare Distributed Management System (NDMS), which will manage systems resources, including content and applications as well as devices and services. In the spirit of openness, Novell’s NDMS can also be used with other systems and NetWare can permit other management consoles to be substituted.

• Mobile users are enabled by current and future services including GroupWise Remote, Remote Paging, ACS/LAN WorkPlace, Mobile NetWare Client, Remote Messaging, NetWare Connect, and NLSP and Mobile Routing.

Novell’s Applications strategy will encompass personal and group productivity as well as consumer products, through Novell’s PerfectOffice, GroupWise, and MainStreet product lines. Features to be emphasized include:

• Intelligent linguistic features (based on software acquired through WordPerfect’s prior acquisition of Reference Software, as reflected in the InfoCentral PIN product).

• A continued focus on personal productivity (in other words, Novell won’t neglect personal productivity in its new interest in networked applications).

The Networked Applications will include a focus on group collaboration and communication (GroupWise, integration with network services NDS, Messaging), Application Management (NDMS), and Network Applications tools (Visual AppBuilder). Voice-based technology and WorkFlow are also planned.

Just as importantly, Bob Frankenberg stressed what Novell doesn’t intend to do. You may recall that we’ve been speculating that Novell might choose to slim down a bit, in getting to its new strategy. That is clearly under way.

• Novell will not focus on desktop operating systems. It will continue to sell and support Novell DOS and Personal Unix, but it will not do further work to enhance the products.

• Novell will not be in the business of purpose-built applications and tools (that means user-specific applications or line-of-business applications) and so Novell is de-emphasizing the AppWare Foundation.

• Novell will not itself build database software and has sold the B-Trieve product (although it will sell Borland’s Paradox product as part of its PerfectOffice Suite).

• Novell long ago got out of the hardware business and Frankenberg promises they’re never getting back in.

• He also has no intention of being in the systems integration business or the information content business -- both of which he thinks are fine businesses for Novell partners.

Novell will achieve Pervasive Computing through the support of its partners in the NAEC (education) and Reseller, OEM, and Service Provider community, as well as through Novell systems integrators. Novell has more than 20,000 reseller partners, so this is a real depth of strength.

Novell is claiming a leadership position in the new architecture it has proclaimed. It believes there is a market potential of a billion users on networks everywhere for the pervasive computing technology and it expects to take more -- much more -- than its share. This is competition at its best. Don’t complain about what the other fellow is doing; just do your own thing superlatively well. It’s what has made HP the leader in client/server computing and I suspect Bob Frankenberg lusts to add a new leadership role for Novell to the HP alumni association record of achievements.