Novell outlines the lie of the land

NEWS The future of Netware's was clarified today as Novell CEO Jack Messman outlined the product's roadmap for the next few years. Netware's position as the cornerstone to Novell's future profitability was already partly secured through the announcement of One Net - Novell's web services strategy. Netware 6 will form the base upon which web services will be developed, elevating it from a directory services component to a web services must-have. The next iteration of Netware, code-named Nakoma, is already in advanced development and is expected to hit the streets early next year. However, this time around the software has been based on J2EE in an attempt to broaden its appeal to developers. Chris Stone, vice chairman of Novell, admitted the company had, in the past, made a poor job of making the products accessible to developers. "The focus is now on J2EE as well as Java as the preferred development language. In the past we've not made it easy for developers. But now we want to be developer-friendly even if this requires some attitude adjustment within the company," he said. Novell is also set to launch an operating system currently code-named Haydan. Novell CEO Messman said it will take the form of a 32-bit and 64-bit platform. However, he remained tight-lipped on more specific details. And finally Messman announced plans to launch self-healing management software called Uinta. Uinta will also address load changes on the server and offer infinite capacity, headded. The software is expected to be released some time after Nakoma.