New Novell Directory Technology Delivers Foundation for eBusiness

Novell, Inc., the leading provider of Net services software, today announced general availability of DirXML 1.0, Novell® NDS® eDirectory 8.5, and Novell Account Management 2.1, breakthrough eBusiness infrastructure technology for accelerating business-to-business and business-to-consumer commerce for enterprises, ISPs and ASPs.

27 September 2000

  • Novell announces general availability of DirXML1.0, eDirectory 8.5, and Novell Account Management 2.1
  • Novell's cross-platform directory-based Net services software empowers a new breed of business solutions and creates competitive advantages for solving key eBusiness problems
  • Industry-leading partners to simultaneously deliver employee and customer provisioning solutions based on new directory technology

Novell, Inc., the leading provider of Net services software, today announced general availability of DirXML 1.0, Novell® NDS® eDirectory 8.5, and Novell Account Management 2.1, breakthrough eBusiness infrastructure technology for accelerating business-to-business and business-to-consumer commerce for enterprises, ISPs and ASPs. These new directory technologies from Novell enable companies to build, secure, integrate and maintain highly customized eBusiness relationships with customers, partners and employees over the unified global network creating one Net. They provide customers with the necessary infrastructure building blocks to simplify and accelerate their transformation to eBusiness. In partnership with industry-leading Consulting Systems Integrators, Novell's technology is the first on the market to address crucial new market opportunities such as automatic employee and customer provisioning.

Novell's new directory products solve key eBusiness problems facing customers today by providing the power and flexibility they need to compete in a market that moves at Net speed. eDirectory remains the only directory on the market to work on all leading operating systems, which significantly simplifies the complexities of managing users and resources in a mixed Win2000, NT, NetWare, and Linux environment. It is the industry's only secure, scalable, cross-platform directory service, allowing organizations to centrally store and manage information across all networks and operating systems, and leverages existing IT investments. Novell Account Management (formerly known as NDS Corporate Edition) provides the ability to centrally manage and integrate user account information across mixed platform environments, enabling employees, business partners and customers to work together in a truly integrated manner.

DirXML is powerful new integration software that combines state-of-the-art directory technology with the common language of eBusiness, XML, to power secure cross-platform and cross-network information exchange. DirXML allows core company information to be automatically synchronized and shared between and within enterprises. Through its ability to deliver centralized control over eBusiness processes, DirXML enables organizations to keep up with the intense demands of the Net economy by reducing network management costs and driving new opportunities that elevate relationships with clients and customers.

"eDirectory 8.5 with DirXML will be a secure, efficient means of authenticating visitors to both our consumer Web site and our extranet," said Chris Duffy, Communications Engineer at Rockford Corporation. "eDirectory will recognize our customers and determine the information and applications to which they have access. The value of this solution is that each customer's experience on our sites will be unique. Customers will automatically be provided with the content and resources most relevant to them, saving time and making for a more positive online experience."

Novell Directory Technology Accelerates eBusiness Competitive Advantage
DirXML, eDirectory and Novell Account Management help companies to solve key business problems, such as employee and customer provisioning. According to analyst research, the average organization has more than 180 databases that contain loads of data. For every change made to this data, a change has to be made in every database to keep it current. This has been a very expensive and error-prone process. Now, for the first time, Novell is fully integrating the directory into eBusiness processes in order to power cross-platform, cross-network information exchange.

"The new release of eDirectory, combined with DirXML and Novell Account Management, demonstrate a major leap ahead of our competition. Through these powerful new technologies, Novell is empowering a new breed of business solutions, including employee provisioning and customizable partner and customer relationship management. These and other diverse business solutions can now take advantage of the management and security of directory-based computing," said Paul Smart, vice president and general manager, Net Directory Services, Novell. Furthermore, we are putting in place key partnerships with Consulting Systems Integrator and channel partners in order to build the essentials around our Net services software. This is allowing us to provide customers with solutions that solve real business problems allowing them to compete successfully in the new Internet economy."

Industry-leading Partners Support Novell's Cutting-edge Directory Technology
Novell is partnering with a number of Consulting Systems Integrator partners to provide employee and customer provisioning solutions, universal employee access to the corporate information and applications they need, among other business solutions. These partners include Computer Sciences Corporation, Deloitte& Touche, marchFIRST, and Perot Systems.

"Our clients' see tremendous value in the scalability and cross-platform integration of Novell's eDirectory," said Robert Wise, Chief Technology Officer, marchFIRST. "Additionally, DirXML accelerates integration of our clients' existing business systems with those of their customers, suppliers and partners."

eDirectory 8.5 Features and Benefits
eDirectory 8.5 includes new features and functionality that make it the ideal platform for eBusiness applications. These include: Filtered replication Delivers a more flexible way for network administrators to tailor and customize data and processes. It filters searches and retrieval, reducing the amount of data that needs to be searched, thereby providing faster results.
iMonitor A browser-based monitoring tool that makes it easy for administrators to monitor and trace directory operations throughout the enterprise. Network administrators now have a way to keep an eye on eDirectory activity from anywhere, at anytime.
Tree federation A powerful new feature that makes it easier for a company to establish business-to-business commerce by allowing companies to share directory attributes and information with partners, suppliers and customers without having to duplicate databases.
LDAP v3 extensions Provides support for the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, version three, the industry's most widely used protocol for accessing information that resides in directories. LDAP extensions make it easier for administrators and software developers to integrate their applications easily into eDirectory, offering a more simplified way to communicate and interact with the directory.
Enhanced security Now includes PKI, NMAS and SSL support.
Extended platform support Now includes support for Tru64* Unix from Compaq.

DirXML, eDirectory, and Novell Account Management Accelerate eBusiness
With more than 68.5 million users and the ability to manage billions of objects, Novell's award-winning eDirectory is the only full-services directory on the market today that can deliver the integration, scale and performance of both an enterprise and Internet directory. According to recent IDC reports, organizations using eDirectory reported better return on investments and improved operational efficiencies and employee productivity gains.

Pricing and Availability NDS eDirectory 8.5 will be available on multiple platforms including NetWareâ, NT, Win2000, Solaris*, Linux* and now Tru64 Unix within the next 30 days through Novell channel partners. Novell Account Management 2.1 will be available on NetWare, NT, Solaris, Linux and Tru64 Unix in the next 30 days through Novell channel partners. It will be available on Win2000 by end of year. Pricing for eDirectory is $2 USD per user, and Novell Account Management is priced at $26 USD per user. Novell offers flexible subscription plans for ISPs and ASPs and other customers of very large directories.

As part of its phased release to the market, DirXML is currently available on NetWare and NT through Novell Consulting Services and Consulting Systems Integrator partners. DirXML will be available on all other platforms which eDirectory supports within the next 30 days. At that time Novell will begin extending the availability to systems integrators, independent consultants and other deployment specialists. Pricing for DirXML includes the cost of eDirectory and is structured based on individual customer requirements. For example, the license fee of DirXML software to a large company wanting to connect multiple systems consisting of Peoplesoft, Oracle, NDS and Notes, and supporting over 10,000 users, would typically begin at $350,000.

Novell Consulting and Novell consulting partners are available to help customer's design and implement eBusiness solutions based on DirXML and eDirectory. Novell's Consulting Services can be reached at 1-800-714-1700.

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, NetWare and NDS are registered trademarks, and DirXML, eDirectory and NMAS are trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *All third party trademarks are the property of their respective owners

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