Sathya Mithra Ashok
BANGALORE: "Novell is betting heavily on open source software. We are committed to open source because we believe that it offers freedom of choice to customers," said Ashit Panjhwani, national manager for alliances and marketing, Onward Novell India. Novell is a provider of network operating systems.
Panjhwani said that evidence of this support for open source software can be gleaned from the fact that the soon to be launched NetWare 7 will be in two versions - one based on Linux kernel and one on NetWare platform. These two kernels of NetWare 7 are to be launched sometime next year, according to Prajwani, and have been so designed as to provide choice to the customer.
According to him, further evidence of Novell’s support for the open source initiative is the fact that it is all set to launch a certification course for Linux globally.
"One of the major issues preventing enterprises from considering open source is the lack of support available for the same. The Certified Linux Engineer (CLE) program, which will be launched sometime in November to December this year, is an effort to do away with that worry. With this program, Novell offers its traditional reliability and scalability to Linux along with support," he said. Prajwani added that the Enterprise Linux Services version 1.0 to be launched in December 2003, is the first step towards the journey of moving NetWare services to Linux also.
The CLE program will happen along with Novell’s existing Certified NetWare Engineer (CNE) program and will be conducted in Novell Authorized Education Centers and Novell Education Academic Partners. There are around 50 such centers across India according to the company. Prajwani, though refusing to give further details on the course structure and time, did add that the company’s channel partners and support staff would themselves be taking the course prior to its official launch.
Replying to a question on other activities of Novell in India, Panjhwani said, "We will be putting in place a support center in Bombay by the end of next month. The center will cater to Novell’s customers in the APAC region. We are in the process of hiring for the center and will be employing around 25 people to begin with. Further hiring will depend purely on requirements."
Panjhwani, who works out of Onward Novell’s base in Mumbai, was in Bangalore for the launch of Novell Netware 6.5.
(CNS)
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