Novell Simplifies, Personalizes Net Experience with Novell Portal Services

• Novell Portal Services personalizes the Net for eBusiness partners, customers, suppliers or employees
• Consolidates applications and information into a single view, giving users browser-based access anytime, anywhere to the data and tools they need with one-step authentication
• Content for personalized portals can come from any source: corporate networks, extranets or the Internet

Novell, Inc., the leading provider of Net services software, today announced the availability of Novell® Portal Services 1.0, eBusiness software that presents users a single, unified view to the Net, removing the barriers between intranets, extranets, the Internet, and wired and wireless networks. Novell Portal Services boosts employee productivity and enhances relationships with customers and partners by providing personalized, single-view access to files, collaboration tools, information and applications from all over the Net. With Novell Portal Services, users sign on once to gain simple, browser-based access anytime, anywhere to the applications and information resources they need, ultimately improving security, reducing help-desk calls, and increasing employee uptime.

"Novell Portal Services gives us the ability to deliver a customized Net experience to our individual partners that enables them to interact directly with our back-end services and better participate in our whole business process," said Nick Harris, end user systems coordinator for England-based Twinings, one of the oldest tea companies in the world. "Novell Portal Services will enable us to communicate more effectively up and down the supply chain. Partners will have role-based access to key applications through the portal to improve collaboration and enhance productivity. This access, provided by Novell NDS® eDirectory, ensures granular control of our information."

Novell Portal Services simplifies access to all Net resources, secures the use of these resources with one-step authentication, and accelerates the deployment of powerful enterprise portals by using existing enterprise directories. Novell Portal Services provides a framework that simplifies access to Web-based services, including Novell Net services software such as GroupWise® for collaboration, NetWare® for high-availability files and printing, iChain for secure extranet authentication, DirXML for data synchronization, and Novell OnDemand Services for access to digital content and thin-client applications. Novell Portal Services also provides simplified access to enterprise applications, such as Microsoft* Exchange and Lotus Notes*.

People need access to their data and tools on both sides of the corporate firewall to stay competitive in business and to be as productive as possible. "Using Novell Portal Services, users can get to their personalized 'Web desktop' with the information and applications they need, wherever they are," said Craig Miller, vice president and general manager of Novell's Net Management business unit. "For example, employees' work portals may contain e-mail boxes, corporate news, links to commonly used applications and folders, a help desk, and other resources to help them get their jobs done. Outside the enterprise, you can also create a customized portal for each of your business partners, a portal for suppliers that shows your inventory levels, or a portal for customers that provides company news, product promotions and access to corporate white pages. And the content for these personalized portals can come from any source: your corporate network, your extranet or the Internet."

Novell Portal Services takes advantage of the identity-based information stored in Novell NDS eDirectory to create a personalized portal for each user. Based on Internet standards such as Java  and XML, Novell Portal Services simplifies the accessibility of all Net resources regardless of platform, supporting NetWare, Windows NT*/2000, Solaris* and Linux* operating systems. Novell Portal Services supplies dynamic, customized content to each portal. For example, Novell Portal Services will store a user's credentials in the directory so he or she can quickly access secured Web content that already exists in the intranet but normally requires the use of an additional user login and password.

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, GroupWise and NDS are registered trademarks, BrainShare is a registered service mark, and DirXML, eDirectory, iChain and Novell OnDemand Services are trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.