Novell's Messman: SilverStream Buy Will Offer New Opportunities To Channel

Novell SilverStream

Speaking to CRN after a conference call unveiling Novell's $212 million purchase of SilverStream Monday, Messman said Novell's channel strategy is a work in progress as it restructures to become a Web services infrastructure provider.

Messman said as Novell begins providing business solutions and methodologies to its partners, the SilverStream product portfolio, in particular the J2EE-based application server, will be fundamental to that plan.

"Novell is providing business solutions, such as identity provisioning for PeopleSoft and SAP, and business process management for local government," Messman said. "I think the app server product we're getting from SilverStream is a real winner for [that strategy and the channel."

As previously reported by CRN, industry watchers had expected Novell would buy a J2EE development platform company to round out its portfolio as it tries to reinvent itself to compete with Microsoft, IBM and Sun Microsystems as a Web services platform company. The deal with SilverStream is expected to close either in mid-July or mid-August, contingent on shareholder approval, Messman said.

One SilverStream channel partner raised concerns that while the deal is sound from a technology perspective, Novell may not have or be prepared to court the type of solution providers it needs to make the new Web services strategy successful.

"The combination actually does make sense based purely on the technology," said Brad Murphy, senior vice president of strategic business development at Dallas-based solution provider Valtech, a SilverStream partner. "The future world we're all talking about with regard to Web services does require a very robust, mature and secure infrastructure on which to operate,and Novell's position is they've been doing that for the last 20 years."

Murphy also said that as a SilverStream channel partner, he has encountered customers that were afraid to standardize on the vendor's technology because of its small size. Becoming a part of Novell will solve many of those issues in the short term, he said.

But Murphy said there are long-term issues to be solved. For instance, he said he was troubled that "you didn't hear a single reference to partners during the entire [conference call" until he himself asked the companies what the strategy would be.

Murphy said that Novell's traditional channel partners, competent though they are, are not "companies on the leading edge of this Web services revolution."

But David Litwack, president and CEO of SilverStream, said that while Novell's channel traditionally has resold and integrated proprietary technology, there are "hundreds of hundreds" of Novell partners working with Java and J2EE as they implement networks using Novell products.

"The trend within the channel is to move up the value stack," Litwack said. "The move from just selling boxes to increasingly doing services, more sophisticated services. In the higher end of the Novell channel, [partners will have Java, J2EE expertise."

Litwack,who will become senior vice president of Novell's Web services business unit, the entity SilverStream will become once the deal goes through,said the SilverStream eXtend Web services development platform is aimed at making J2EE and XML Web services development easy for business application developers. This will make using the products easy even if solution providers are not familiar with Java and XML.

But for Novell to execute the Web services strategy successfully, Valtech's Murphy said, the vendor will have to leverage the influence and expertise of solution providers already working with J2EE and XML to implement Web services. He said he does not think Novell has initially put forth a solid plan for how it will accomplish this task. "I fell like I've been dropped on Novell's doorstep," Murphy said.

Murphy said he remains optimistic that Novell simply has not yet articulated its strategy to the channel and that, once it does, Valtech will partner as closely with Novell as it has with SilverStream.

"[I am optimistic that what I'm going to learn is Novell understands that the influencers in the marketplace could be used to create credibility for their new offerings," Murphy said. "I hope Novell will emerge as a white knight to give us global reach and realize companies like us are essential to them delivering on the promise of this vision and platform."