Novell Helps Customers Integrate Windows 2000 Securely Into their Networks

Novell, Inc., the leading provider of Net services software, today announced new software that allows customers to integrate Windows* 2000 efficiently and securely into their corporate networks. Novell® Account Management 2.1 is a robust enterprise management tool that gives businesses the power and flexibility to tie together their disparate operating systems into a single unified network. It offers businesses significant advantages, including the ability to simplify the administration of all network services and reduce high costs associated with managing users and groups across mixed NT, NetWare®, Solaris*, Linux*, and, now, Win2000 platforms. Built on the industry's most reliable, secure and scalable directory service, Novell eDirectory, Novell Account Management reconfirms Novell's leadership in promoting interoperability on the Net, ensuring eBusinesses can buy what they want and leverage what they have, a winning formula for building the best network to meet their needs.

As companies move to the Net, they face significant challenges opening their networks to customers, partners, and suppliers. This challenge is heightened by the fact that most companies have very heterogeneous networks, with mixed NetWare, Windows, Linux and Solaris platforms. Novell Account Management is an ideal management solution for customers that need to integrate Windows 2000 with their existing network while still wanting the superior performance, security and scalability of Novell eDirectory. Because eDirectory runs natively on Windows 2000, customers with Windows 2000 in their environment are not forced to utilize Active Directory* to manage users, groups and resources. Customers can depend on Novell's proven award-winning directory service with nine years of real world implementation, rather than having to commit to a new Microsoft release.

"One of our strategic challenges was to integrate different directories into one cohesive infrastructure. By utilizing technologies like eDirectory and other Net services software, we were able to bridge the gap between Novell's eDirectory and Microsoft's Active Directory," said David Lind, director of Information Technology at Allina Health Systems. Allina Health Systems, based in Minnesota, is a not-for-profit integrated health care organization that operates a network of 19 hospitals and 48 clinics, and offers a wide range of inpatient, outpatient, medical transportation and home-based health care services. "Novell eDirectory allows different applications that are not very adaptable to now effectively co-exist under a single directory service. We are now able to more effectively manage and support these applications, saving us resources, time and money."

"Novell Account Management reduces the complexity of managing large diverse networks by helping to remove network incompatibilities that exist in most businesses today. This increases business efficiency and employee productivity and reduces network management costs for our customers, which is especially important in times of economic downturn," said Paul Smart, general manager and vice president of Novell's Net Directory business. "A large percentage of eDirectory deployments are running on Windows NT* and 2000, as these customers realize significant advantages over using Active Directory as their main directory service. Studies show that a large percentage of Windows 2000 customers are putting off deployments of Active Directory; these customers can now use Novell Account Management and eDirectory as their enterprise directory and benefit from both better management and user security and from the ability to integrate with other platforms."

Getting Directories in Order Helps Lay Foundation for eBusiness Leveraging the power of eDirectory, Novell Account Management helps businesses lay the foundation for eBusiness by putting their multiple directories in order, simplifying disparate networks, and allowing better management of processes between customers, employees and supply-chain partners. As Net infrastructure technology, eDirectory offers businesses many advantages, including reduced network administration and hardware costs, faster access to data and information, secure network access and superior fault tolerance. It supports all Internet standards and access protocols and has Internet-scalability to support deployments of virtually unlimited size.

"We had core corporate information scattered throughout many different databases and systems across various units of the university. We implemented a centralized directory service, leveraging Novell eDirectory, to bring all of this data and information into one place to create an authoritative source of directory information for the university," said Jinx Walton, director of computing services and systems development, University of Pittsburgh. "Novell eDirectory lets us manage our Windows NT, Solaris and NetWare environments collectively. As we incorporate Windows 2000 into our network, Novell Account Management will help there, too. This consolidated account management frees up resources across the entire university."

Delivering Single Sign-on Access to Microsoft Networks
Novell Account Management provides end users with faster and more secure single sign-on access to Windows 2000 based systems and applications helping to enhance enterprise security. Single sign-on access to network resources helps reduce the #1 help desk cost, and simplifies the end user experience as they can now get one password access to data and information from wherever they connect to the corporate network.

About eDirectory
With 139 million users, Novell eDirectory is the industry's #1 directory service that provides centralized management of user identities and network resources and information. As the only directory service to work on all networks and operating systems, including Windows NT/2000, NetWare, Solaris, Linux, Tru64 UNIX* and soon IBM AIX*, eDirectory is the most open, robust and secure platform to develop eBusiness applications that can be exchanged across the enterprise and over the Net with customer and business partner systems. Unlike competing products on the market today, eDirectory works with customers' existing hardware and software eliminating the need for businesses to go through the costly and time-consuming task of making infrastructure changes.

Pricing and Availability
Licenses for Novell Account Management 2.1 will be available on May 15 at $26 US per user through Novell resellers and solutions providers, Novell consultant and systems integrator partners or through http://shop.novell.com. Novell Account Management customers that want Windows 2000 support can upgrade for free. For more information please go to www.novell.com/products/edirectory/accountmanagement.

About Novell
Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ:NOVL), is the leading provider of Net services software that delivers services to secure and power all types of networks the Internet, intranets, and extranets; wired to wireless; corporate and public across leading operating systems. Novell's Net services software provides the foundation for one Net a single global network that supports new applications and forms of business. Worldwide channel, consulting, education and technical support programs, along with strategic alliances, combine Novell Net services software with third-party products and services to form complete Net solutions.

For information on Novell's complete range of products and services, contact Novell's Customer Response Center at (888) 321-4CRC (4272), or visit Novell's Web site at http://www.novell.com. Press may access Novell announcements and company information on the World Wide Web at http://www.novell.com/pressroom. In addition, detailed comparisons between Novell products and competitive offerings from other vendors are available on the Web at http://www.novell.com/competitive.

Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks, NetWorld is a registered service mark, and eDirectory is a trademark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.