Novell NetWare 6.5 has the Indian touch

BANGALORE: Onward Novell Software India, the JV between Onward Network Technologies and Novell Inc., has announced the launch of Novell's Netware 6.5 network operating system for the Indian sub-continent. "Novell 6.5 is a product from the stables of Novell Nterprise and is targeted entirely at the enterprise segment. In India, the product has already been ordered by a few customers through our channel partners," said Onward Novell Software India alliance and marketing national manager Ashit Panjhwani.

The Indian development center of the company has developed the IT stacks and the Java part of the product. According to the company, NetWare 6.5 integrates open source elements in a comprehensive manner. The product sports ties between eDirectory and the open source elements of Apache, MySQL, and PHP, AMP as the company refers to it. The company, in its efforts to make NetWare a better option for building and deploying web based applications, has added to the version development platforms including TomCat, J2EE and Novell's Extend application server platform.

Replying to a question on the TCO offered by NetWare 6.5 as opposed to Windows 2003, Panjhwani said, "NetWare 6.5 goes beyond just being a network operating system. While bringing the rock solid reliability of its predecessors, it reduces the additional technology required by the customer by integrating application server as well as business continuity options which allows 32 by 32 node clustering. All of this will add upto an ROI and TCO that far outpaces other options in the market."

Though declining details on the market strategy for the product, Panjhwani did say that the open source elements of the product opened an entire new community that could be addressed with the product apart from enterprises in verticals including manufacturing and telecom.

NetWare 6.5 is available from Novell authorized channel partners for a price of Rs 41,790. The existing users of Novell though will have an upgrade option at a lesser price.

(Cyber News Service)