In the early 1990s, the company held as much as 75 percent of the market share for server operating systems with its Netware application. But when Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) started making inroads with Windows NT, it tried to beat Microsoft at its own game by purchasing Word Perfect, among other things, instead of concentrating on its core strengths.

And trying to beat Microsoft at its own game "is just something you just don't do [when] you don't have the brand name recognition and visibility of a Microsoft," Laura DiDio, director of desktop and server operating systems for Giga Information Group, told NewsFactor Network.

As a result of this strategic error and other marketing missteps, many now perceive Novell as "this old company taking that long inexorable walk to the high-tech elephant graveyard," DiDio said. Nasdaq's announcement that it was bumping Novell off its Nasdaq-100 Index only reinforces the perception.

But in two months, Novell will release new adaptive configuration management software that could upend the balance between Novell and its longtime nemesis.

Zen on the .NET

Microsoft's .NET, according to DiDio, promises a series of Web-based services that will allow people to download their applications from the Web and use them from within a single application. Instead of being tied to a single desktop, users will be able to access their data , programs, and online identity from a PC, a PDA -- even from a wireless phone.

Deployment of .NET isn't expected for another 12 to 24 months, and when it does become available businesses will need to upgrade their hardware and software in order to use it.

But in February, Novell is launching a competing suite of networking software that promises to offer similar flexibility, called ZENworks Up -- and it will not require buying new hardware, sticking to a single platform, or adopting a certain suite of applications. Businesses can even run Windows and Microsoft Office from it if they so choose.

In DiDio's words, ZENworks is "dot-NET now."

Cake for All

Kelly Wagman, one of the two product managers for ZENworks, told NewsFactor that ZENworks gives businesses the tools to be agile without having to rip out and replace their networks -- a prohibitive expense for most businesses.

"The answer to a heterogeneous environment is not to make things homogenous," Wagman told NewsFactor. "The idea is for businesses to get to their vision of what they'll have tomorrow without changing today." (continued...)

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