Linux's Recent One-Two Punch

The Linux market got a major shot in the arm last week, as the Open Source Development Labs announced the completion of the Linux 2.6 production kernel and Novell released its NetWare services on Linux.

The completion of the Linux 2.6 kernel after a three-year development effort is expected to enhance Linux use in the enterprise, on desktops and in the telecommunications space. Red Hat and SUSE plan to incorporate the kernel in their distributions in mid- to late 2004.

Meanwhile, just one month after disclosing plans to acquire SUSE, Novell announced the availability of many of its flagship NetWare services,including file, print, messaging, directory and management services,on the open-source operating system.

The new suite, called Nterprise Linux Services 1.0, has many features of NetWare 6.5, including Virtual Office, eDirectory, iFolder, iPrint and iManage. It also integrates the company's NetMail Internet messaging and calendaring product as well as Novell Resource Management code, acquired from Ximian and its Red Carpet network service this year.

The integrated stack was made available last week through Novell Authorized Resellers and solution providers at a suggested price of $59 per user, the Provo, Utah, company said.Novell also received early backing from the services organizations of Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Computer Associates to deploy the network services to enterprise customers. It remains unclear how the SUSE acquisition will affect Novell's product plans in the SMB space, though.

While sources say Novell likely will bundle Nterprise Services with SUSE's Linux distribution, SUSE in October began shipping an integrated Linux server for SMBs called SUSE Linux Standard Server 8 that includes many components similar to Nterprise Services, including Internet access, e-mail, file and print services.

Novell is expected to continue to support SUSE's products at least initially, one SUSE executive said. The merger is expected to be completed in January.

Others wonder how long Nterprise Services will support Red Hat Linux, given the pending merger. The services are currently supported on both the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Novell would not comment while the SUSE acquisition remains in progress, a spokesman said.Novell announced plans to move NetWare services to Linux last March and began beta-testing in the fall. The company said it remains committed to porting the services natively to the Linux kernel in NetWare 7.0, due in 2005.

"There is a huge demand for this. Novell has been losing a lot of customers to Linux in general, so they really needed to do this," said Chris Maresca, general partner at Olliance Group, Palo Alto, Calif. "The real question is whether their channel has been eroded to the point where they have a long slog to rebuild it."