Novell Hosts BrainShare 2008, with 5,500 Participants from 58 Countries and 65 Exhibitors and Sponsors

At its annual BrainShare user conference today, Novell unveiled products, partnerships and its strategic vision for the future to customers, partners, press, and industry and financial analysts. Novell's BrainShare, with 5,500 participants from 58 countries, features keynotes, business and technical sessions, and demonstrations that illuminate Novell's software that solves customer problems today and Novell's strategy for streamlining computing in the future. Cornerstone sponsor SAP leads a group of 65 sponsors and exhibitors at the conference.

Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian outlined Novell's ongoing work built on the company's long-time leadership as an infrastructure software company to help organizations around the world harmoniously integrate their mixed-IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. Chief Technology Officer Jeff Jaffe reviewed Novell's emerging technical vision, the Fossa project, which can provide organizations with infinite flexibility to deploy their IT resources to solve their specific problems. The ability to help build the agile IT infrastructure and then apply that technology to real customer problems sets Novell apart from the competition. Novell's technical vision is a key pillar to supporting the “how” of delivering Novell's business strategy and corporate positioning.

Keynotes throughout the week will feature Novell® executives, partners and customers showcasing technology and how to use it. Executives leading each of the four Novell business units will provide their view of the business and where Novell's products and solutions are heading. These include Roger Levy who leads the Open Platform Solutions business unit, Jim Ebzery from the Identity and Security business unit, Joe Wagner from the Systems and Resource Management business unit and Kent Erickson from the Workgroup Solutions business unit. In addition, BrainShare technical breakout sessions give attendees hands-on experience and access to the engineers and experts who build the technology. BrainShare gives customers the ability to test drive the latest software, learn how to maximize their technology budgets, learn about network security, connect and exchange ideas with other IT professionals from around the world, and meet with other companies whose products and services enhance their investment in Novell technology.

“With growth across all of our product lines, acquisitions such as SiteScape for strengthened collaboration and PlateSpin for virtualization and workload management in the works, and partnerships with SAP, Atos Origin and other global leaders, Novell is experiencing the momentum and benefits of focusing on meeting customer needs,” Hovsepian said. “Our focus on our core strategy as an infrastructure software company that leverages the best-engineered Linux and IT management software is unwavering. I'm also excited about our ability to help customers harmoniously integrate mixed-IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one.”

Focusing on interoperability that allows people and technology to work as one, Novell today also announced an expansion of Novell's global partnership with SAP; a partnership with Atos Origin; plans for the next major version of SUSE® Linux Enterprise; growth in the partner ecosystem for Novell's identity and Security business; and market momentum for Novell's Teaming + Conferencing collaboration solution. Novell also announced a first look at next-generation data center management, showcasing offerings available today from Novell and PlateSpin*. [Note: see separate Novell announcements for details on today's news.]

In services news, Novell has implemented new Web support technology to make it easier for customers and partners to make service requests and receive timely support. Called Novell On-Line, the new service includes improved capabilities to search the knowledge base and real-time access to Novell support engineers who can help them resolve issues faster, via chat, e-mail or call back, as the customer prefers. Support engineers can connect to a customer's system for improved troubleshooting and easier walk-through of directions, and customers can even share or grant full control of their desktop or server so the support engineer can work directly on their problem, with little assistance required from the customer. Novell On-Line makes Novell's industry-recognized, award-winning support more available to customers and partners.

John Dragoon, Novell chief marketing officer, said, “We are pleased with how our infrastructure software company strategy, the corporate positioning Ron alluded to around integrating mixed-IT environments so people and technology can work as one, and our Novell technical vision – the Fossa project – all fit together so well. This is key because our customers want to deal with a company that has a rock-solid strategy and business model, a strong sense of who they are, and both the technical vision and applied technology to deliver the 'how' solutions for today and far into the future.”