Novell eyes role of Linux champion

Novell will be the "catalyst" for desktop and enterprise Linux, according to its chairman and chief executive Jack Messman.

Messman told the 1,200 delegates attending the company's Brainshare Europe event how the company will embrace open source.

He said that Novell's acquisition of Ximian last month showed that it is approaching open source in the right way, and that Novell's "ecosystem", including worldwide distribution, would be thrown behind Linux.

"Desktop Linux is seen by many in this industry as the next big thing. Novell intends to be a catalyst in this development," said Messman.

Before the end of the year, Novell will ship Nterprise Linux Services 1.0, taking many of Netware's file, print, messaging and directory features to Linux and adding Ximian's Red Carpet management services.

Nterprise also includes a virtual office via Extend Director, and the first beta will be available in mid-October. The company is yet to outline pricing.

Novell also unveiled Nsure Secure Log-in 3.5, available from 17 October, which no longer depends on the Novell client to offer key features and now fully supports Java.

Betas of Nterprise Branch Office 2, and its web services product Extend 5, will also be available in October, although again no pricing details were discussed.

"Our customers want us to be more involved in the open source movement. You'll see us aggressively expand in this space. Closed proprietary systems simply don't make sense in today's world," Messman said.

Novell also promised to contribute more to the open source development community as it worked on key projects like Gnome and Mono, which is aimed at running Microsoft .Net-created applications on Linux.

Chris Stone, vice chairman in the office of the chief executive at Novell, added that the company had finally resolved its self-confessed "schizophrenic" attitude towards developers, and would extend its Partnernet programme beyond the channel to independent software and hardware vendors.

"We need you and we will support you," said Messman. "Collectively we can bring to Linux the ecosystem to help it thrive."

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