Novell in talks to broaden reach of NDS

December 24, 1998 — Novell, which has made NDS (Novell Directory Services) the centerpiece of its growth strategy, is now poised to pair enterprise Java application servers with directories in an effort to seed the market, and perhaps elevate NDS to a de facto industry standard.

Novell is looking to the makers of application servers — through bundling and co-branding initiatives — as the next vehicle for injecting its NDS technology into the enterprise. Bundling NDS free with application servers from companies such as IBM is under consideration, Novell officials said.

“EJB [Enterprise JavaBeans] servers require a directory [and are] supposed to have a directory, and there is an EJB interface to NDS,” said Anne Thomas, an analyst at the Patricia Seybold Group, in Boston. “Many of the directories used so far have been Netscape’s Directory Server. So any bundle arrangement would be a smart move by Novell. NDS is the future of Novell.”

Time is of the essence. Novell is working feverishly to set its NDS apart from Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories — and Microsoft’s forthcoming Active Directory in Windows 2000 — as a Java-optimized platform within the enterprise. NDS will centrally manage and distribute information about objects, resources, users, and networked equipment.

In addition to recent efforts to parlay NDS through Internet service providers and networking hardware vendors, Novell is now seeking bundling arrangements with the application server products from IBM, Sun, and Oracle to piggyback their way into corporate accounts, sources close to Novell said.

“I’d be happy if Oracle were to license NDS. Everyone else is [licensing],” said Chris Stone, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development at Novell.

IBM said it is in talks with Novell but that no firm proposals have been drafted. IBM has several of its own directory products.

Oracle officials said the talks with Novell have not come to any conclusion and were part of an ongoing dialogue with Novell on how to work together, said John Fomook, director of product marketing for Oracle Application Server.

“Novell seems to be 100 percent focused on NDS, and that’s good,” Fomook said.

The match-up of directories and application servers is a natural one, according to analysts, because directories help to manage the dynamic distribution of objects, and application servers help directories to insulate developers from them.

At the recent Java Business Expo show in New York, Novell demonstrated an NDS-optimized application server, called jBusiness, from Novera Software. Although no bundling deal between the two has been announced, the companies are presently co-marketing the products.

The directory application server tag team makes a lot of sense, said David Butler, vice president of marketing at Novera, because corporate developers can write to the application server and make use of the directory without having to learn directory APIs.

“We have LDAP and directory server integration inside and below our APIs, so it’s all done out of the box. Developers don’t have to know LDAP or directory schemas; it solves manageability,” Butler said.