Novell Makes Branch Offices Feel at Home

• Novell Nterprise Branch Office lets organizations provide complete, secure network services to their branch offices and save money in the process
• Branch offices can be securely connected via the high-speed Internet, eliminating the need for WAN links and VPNs

To keep branch office employees connected and productive without breaking the IT budget, Novell today announced the availability of Novell® Nterprise Branch Office™, a soft appliance that lets organizations provide complete network services to their branch offices securely and inexpensively, without IT staff on site.

"In an attempt to cut costs, more and more organizations are consolidating to a few key data centers," said Paul Feldman, vice president of Novell's cross-platform networking services group. "Unfortunately, users on the outskirts of the network are not provided with the same quality IT experience as users in the home office, and their productivity goes down. Nterprise Branch Office gives these organizations a low-cost and efficient way to centralize services without compromising either user productivity or network security. In many cases, this solution will save money over existing deployments."

The Novell Nterprise Branch Office soft appliance - shipped as software only to give customers flexibility to use their choice of new or existing compatible hardware - plugs directly into the existing network and gives branch office users instant access to file storage and printing resources, even automatically backing up data to data center servers. Nterprise Branch Office operates securely across the high-speed Internet, eliminating the need for costly and slow wide area network (WAN) links and virtual private network (VPN) connections. It is unlike other multifunction server appliances because it maintains a separate, cached directory of local users so the entire corporate directory doesn't need to span the network, saving additional bandwidth and management costs.

Aaron Le Saux, technical architect at Rescue Technology Group, a systems integrator in Perth, Australia, said, "We've been testing Nterprise Branch Office, and it's apparent it will improve our customers' data communication services to branch offices while reducing the total cost of ownership significantly. That lets them focus their IT budget on more strategic projects to make their company more competitive. Those are benefits and a return no one can argue with."

Novell Nterprise Branch Office is part of Novell Nterprise™, a set of services that improve communication, simplify and automate network management, and allow workers to be productive regardless of location, device or platform.

Pricing and Availability
Novell Nterprise Branch Office is now available through Novell Authorized ResellersSM and solution providers for a suggested $2,500 per server. The appliance software is free to customers with NetWare® maintenance or upgrade protection. Significant discounts on NetWare and upgrade protection are currently available for qualifying customers. For more information on Nterprise Branch Office, visit http://www.novell.com/products/branchoffice.

About Novell
Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) is the leading provider of information solutions delivering secure identity management (Novell Nsure™), Web application development (Novell exteNd™) and network infrastructure services on a variety of computing platforms (Novell Nterprise™), supported by strategic consulting and services (Novell Ngage). Novell's vision of one Net - a world without information boundaries - helps customers profit from the business opportunities of the information economy securely and economically. For more information, call Novell's Customer Response Center at (888) 321-4CRC (4272) or visit http://www.novell.com Press should visit http://www.novell.com/pressroom.

Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks, exteNd, Nsure, Nterprise and Nterprise Branch Office are trademarks, and Ngage and Novell Authorized Reseller are service marks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.