Windows and Linux close in for the NetWare kill

Novell NetWare users have reached a "fork in the road" as the operating system comes under intense pressure from a dual-pronged Linux and Windows market share attack, according to analyst firm The Yankee Group.

"NetWare users have arrived at the proverbial fork in the road as they prepare to upgrade their legacy NetWare networks," said Laura DiDio, senior analyst at Yankee Group.

The analyst conducted an independent survey of 100 Novell customers and found that eight out of 10 businesses will migrate from NetWare to Windows by 2006.

"And of the remaining 20 per cent, nearly 70 per cent indicated that they would choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux," said DiDio.

Microsoft claimed today that it has poached more than 1.5 million Novell NetWare users and migrated them to Windows Server 2003.

The software giant said that the mass migration programme, which it launched in conjunction with Quest Software in November 2004, is being expanded with enhanced migration tool support for customers considering migration from Novell GroupWise to Exchange Server 2003.

Exchange Server 2003 has been tweaked to natively support migration tools for Novell GroupWise 6.5.x. Previously, only Novell GroupWise 5.x and Novell GroupWise 4.1x versions were supported.

The tools enable coexistence between GroupWise and Exchange Server 2003 networks, providing the interoperability required for the migration of users in phases.

Microsoft is providing offerings for customers worldwide that are either considering or actively pursuing a migration from NetWare to Windows Server 2003.

These include discounts on migration software from Microsoft and Quest, applications that provide step-by-step migration guidance, unlimited technical support via newsgroups, and training programmes that help customers simplify and accelerate the migration process.

More information on the migration tools can be found here.