What's the status of Novell?

[MrEgo]

I'm currently pretty happy with my job, but a recruiter just called my house the other day and asked if I was interested in a position with a company that used NetWare and Groupwise. I thought I would humor it to see what the pay and benefits are like, so I'll probably have a phone interview here in the next coming days.

My question is - is there a point to learning NetWare? I already have 2 good years of experience with AD, and I don't want to switch to a company that's supporting a dead technology (if that's the case).

Also, what are the major advantages of using Microsoft products versus Novell?

 

[RebateMonger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell_NetWare

"Consequent to Novell's acquisitions of Ximian and SuSE, a German Linux distributor, it is widely observed that Novell is moving away from NetWare and shifting its focus towards Linux. Much recent marketing seems to be focussed on getting faithful NetWare users to move to the Linux platform in future releases.[3] The clearest indication of this direction is Novell's controversial decision to release Open Enterprise Server in Linux form only. Novell later watered down this decision and stated that NetWare's 90 million users would be supported until at least 2015.[4] Some of Novell's more avid NetWare supporters have taken it upon themselves to petition Novell to keep NetWare in development.[5]"

Also, from the same source:

"While Novell NetWare is still used by some organizations, its ongoing decline in popularity began in the mid-1990s, when NetWare was the de facto standard for file and print software for the Intel x86 server platform. Modern (2009) NetWare and OES installations are used by larger organizations that may need the added flexibility they provide.

Microsoft successfully shifted market share away from NetWare products toward their own in the late-1990s. Microsoft's more aggressive marketing was aimed directly to management through major magazines; Novell NetWare's was through IT specialist magazines with distribution limited to select IT personnel.

Although Windows-based networks were less reliable and more expensive[citation needed], Novell did not adapt their pricing structure accordingly and NetWare sales suffered at the hands of those corporate decision makers whose valuation was based on initial licensing fees. As a result organizations that still use NetWare, eDirectory, and Novell software often have a hybrid infrastructure of NetWare, Linux, and Windows servers."

 

[guyver01]

Originally posted by: MrEgo
I'm currently pretty happy with my job, but a recruiter just called my house the other day and asked if I was interested in a position with a company that used NetWare and Groupwise.

Just pray to god they dont use Novell 2.x ... the bindry was a pain in the ass to learn.

 

[Nothinman]

My question is - is there a point to learning NetWare? I already have 2 good years of experience with AD, and I don't want to switch to a company that's supporting a dead technology (if that's the case).

Lots of places still have legacy NetWare eDirectory installations and new versions run on Linux so it's not a bad thing to know, but it's not going to be as ubiquitous as AD. It's been a while since I've touched eDirectory but I'd say it's probably a technically better product, for instance you can have users with the same username in different OUs while AD won't let you do that.

Just pray to god they dont use Novell 2.x ... the bindry was a pain in the ass to learn.

The bindery was pretty simple, I'd be more worried by the fact that NetWare 2.x only supports IPX.

 

[Cstefan]

Novell is more granular for control, especially with Zenworks. My shop just moved to AD and for program compatibility its light years ahead of NDS, but we miss some of the management features.

 

[Cstefan]

Take the new job and work on a migration to AD. Its wonderful experience. Quest NDS migrator is the only way to go.

 

[SammyJr]

Originally posted by: MrEgo
I'm currently pretty happy with my job, but a recruiter just called my house the other day and asked if I was interested in a position with a company that used NetWare and Groupwise. I thought I would humor it to see what the pay and benefits are like, so I'll probably have a phone interview here in the next coming days.

My question is - is there a point to learning NetWare? I already have 2 good years of experience with AD, and I don't want to switch to a company that's supporting a dead technology (if that's the case).

Also, what are the major advantages of using Microsoft products versus Novell?

Unless they are moving away from Netware shortly, you should run. Netware might have been superior a long time ago, but they're dying. GroupWise is an absolute nightmare.

<--- works for a company which was Netware/GroupWise until a year ago. We're AD/Groupwise now, soon to be AD/Exchange.

 

[SammyJr]

Originally posted by: Cstefan
Take the new job and work on a migration to AD. Its wonderful experience. Quest NDS migrator is the only way to go.

$$$$. I had to do it the hard way.