eBusiness Meets eDirectory - Novell and IBM to Offer Integrated Best-of-Breed eBusiness Solutions

Novell and IBM today announced a strategic alliance in Europe aimed at providing networking and software solutions for ebusiness customers. The alliance will center around aligning the parties' sales organizations and go-to-market strategies to build on the existing Novell and IBM product and technology agreements. As part of this announcement, IBM will train a number of consultants as Novell Certified Directory Engineers and establish a Novell solutions practice in all major European countries. This practice will deliver NDS eDirectory based solutions to enterprise customers seeking to take advantage of the ebusiness possibilities the Internet offers.

The synergy between Novell "in the Net" network systems and IBM software and services aims to improve capabilities for organizations engaging in ebusiness. The two companies are working at various levels on a marriage of technology, from caching and systems management, through to integrating Web applications into the enterprise to create best-of-breed, cost-effective ebusiness solutions.

"Novell and IBM recognize the value proposition of working together and have identified numerous business opportunities for the year 2000. Both companies are fully committed to the collaboration," explains Elis Nemes, vice president, Novell EMEA. "We are in a position to assist clients in using ebusiness technologies to extend their enterprises and better manage their relationships with customers, employees, and suppliers."

IBM's Mike Lawrie, EMEA general manager, further substantiates this. "IBM and Novell share a vision on the benefits the Internet offers businesses and we are delighted to be working together on delivering ebusiness solutions to the marketplace. The partnership goes far beyond the marriage of key products and technologies, we have each committed to energizing our sales and support organizations around this opportunity."

The integration of Novell and IBM technologies means that networks can be managed efficiently and Web-based applications created and deployed quickly. Novell and IBM are sponsoring a 70-city 'ebusiness solutions' tour across EMEA to communicate the areas of collaboration.

Areas of collaboration:

• The world's largest IT services organization, IBM's Global Services will be training an elite team of professionals as Certified Directory Engineers to ensure easy integration of both companies Internet technologies. These consultants will be based in all major areas across Europe.
• Channel and business partners have been identified and are being trained to sell and implement IBM's WebSphere application and caching solutions.
• IBM WebSphere, distributed with each new license of NetWare 5.1, offers customers an open, standards-based Java runtime with Web Development and Management Software.
• The IBM Caching Appliance incorporating the Novell Internet Caching System, a world class caching solution, dramatically improves the speed and efficiency of delivering Internet content to employees, business partners and customers within business networks as well as across the Internet.
• Novell and IBM have integrated NetWare with IBM's Netfinity servers, so the full potential of the high availability features and caching can be delivered as a scalable, stable and manageable ebusiness platform.
• Both companies have agreed to an extensive program of training for the field sales organization, as well as business partners.

According to Massimo Bonciani, EMEA vice president, IBM Software, Novell was an obvious choice of partner to help drive its ebusiness proposition. "Pairing the industry's leading Web application servers and complete, easy-to-use Web development tools with Novell's flagship, directory-based operating system provides NetWare customers with a secure and reliable growth path as ebusiness needs expand."

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ:NOVL) is the broadest supplier of Net infrastructure software used to integrate and manage the diverse information resources of private business networks and the Internet. Novell's worldwide channel, consulting, developer, education and technical support programs are the most extensive in the network computing industry.

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/advantage.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate.

IBM software offers the widest range of applications, middleware and operating systems for all types of computing platforms, allowing customers to take full advantage of the new era of ebusiness. For more information about IBM software visit http://www.software.ibm.com.

IBM Global Services is the world's largest information technology services provider, with 1999 revenues of approximately $32.2 billion. IBM Global Services helps companies of all sizes realize the full value of information technology. For more information visit http://www.ibm.com/services.

Since 1998, IBM Netfinity servers have set over 42 performance records including seven No. 1 benchmarks.

Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks and NDS eDirectory, Certified Directory Engineer and Novell Internet Caching System are trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. IBM is a registered trademark and WebSphere, Netfinity and ebusiness are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.