Novell's NDS for Linux is to ship in Q4, the company said at its Brainshare conference in Nice, France yesterday. Novell already caters for Linux to some extent, but the appearance of a full version of its directory service software will help Linux gain easier acceptance in Novell sites. NDS is also viewed by Novell as a major weapon against Microsoft. NT's directory services have always been weak when compared to NetWare's and for MS it's all riding on the company's ability to deliver serious competition in Windows 2000. As and when it delivers that, that is. Novell meanwhile has been turning the tables on Microsoft by presenting NetWare as an OS that can easily support a wide range of other platforms, Linux and NT included. NDS version 8 shipped last week, and an upgraded version of NDS for NT is due in the next few months. One thing to watch out for though - a few weeks ago Microsoft's Jim Allchin seemed to be suggesting that, when Windows 2000 shipped, the new security systems might in some way interfere with the operation of NDS. We trust, having been warned by The Register already, that Novell is on the case. ®