NetWare Cobra upgrade to ship January

Novell has released its prices for the NetWare 5.1 upgrade, previously code-named Cobra, which it says will ship on time in mid-January. Novell has already demonstrated NDS running on Windows 2000, but is waiting for Microsoft's final release of Win2k before releasing its own enhancements. In addition to NDS and the new NDS eDirectory (which will support NT server and Solaris - with Linux, Windows 2000 and Compaq Tru64 during the first half of next year), the product will ship with the standard edition of IBM WebSphere Application Server and the entry edition of Studio, which are intended to provide a growth path. There will also be a 5-user version of Oracle8i and Oracle WebDB, giving access to a SQL database. Novell is also including its NetWare Management Portal which allows network administrators to access their network from anywhere in the world. So far as pricing is concerned, comparisons are not easy because both Novell and Microsoft will offer discount plans, and in any event the products are different. Microsoft would need to add additional functionality before useful comparisons could be made. So far, Microsoft has only given the bare bones of its pricing, but Novell's full pricing announcement yesterday suggests that the larger the installation, the greater the saving will be with NetWare. Novell is not expecting to see a great corporate rush to Windows 2000 on 17 February. ®