NetWare 6.5 In Open Beta

At its annual conference here, the Provo, Utah-based company is expected to announce not only the open-beta availability of NetWare 6.5, code-named Nakoma, but its slated release date of June, sources said.

NetWare 6.5 will incorporate many new features including the exteNd Web services application server and the Novell DirXML Starter Pack, which will make it far easier for customers to install Nakoma in Windows 2000 Active Directory environments, sources said.

At BrainShare, Novell is also expected to touch upon planned availability of an upgrade of the full Web services platform, exteNd 5, in 2003, sources said.

One Novell solution provider said the release of GroupWise 6.5 in March and the forthcoming release of NetWare 6.5 will give his customers a compelling reason to upgrade.

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"Most of our customers have upgrade protection so [they] will have the rights to upgrade to Nakoma when it comes out. But generally we like to wait three to six months before upgrading anyone to the latest OS version. We are still upgrading users to Novell 6," said Scott Urbatsch, security specialist and engineering manager at Polar Systems, Portland, Ore. "GroupWise 6.5 is of more interest to us, since it is usually e-mail that causes migrations away from Novell to Microsoft."

At the conference, Novell is expected to also push forward on its NSure solution strategy by announcing the availability of the Liberty Identity Provider for eDirectory, formerly code-named Saturn.

The Liberty Identity Provider for eDirectory, another identity management solution from Novell, uses the Liberty Alliance version 1.0 specifications to enable its eDirectory single sign-on for multiple Web sites. The free downloadable software will enable the exchange of identity information between companies, giving users single sign-on and federation capabilities between Web sites via open standards. Liberty Alliance is a standards-based directory specification, endorsed by Sun, Novell and other companies, and is a competitor to Microsoft's Passport.