COMMENTARY--Novell, a leading Web services company? It just may pull it off, says columnist Eric Knorr, thanks to software and services built around user identity.

Remember the halcyon days of 1999, when Yahoo bought GeoCities for US$2.8 billion just for GeoCities' 4.3 million user profiles?

Today, a different kind of user "profile" has emerged as the coin of the realm: enterprise user identity. How valuable is it? Precious enough to put Novell, long counted out as a major tech player, back in contention.

Novell's eDirectory (along with Sun ONE Directory Server and Microsoft Active Directory) is a leader in directory server software, the specialised database that enterprises employ to store user identities. And Novell seems to understand where today's sweet spot is: providing enterprises with the tools they need to manage and deliver Web services against the identities of employees, partners, and customers (not, as Microsoft discovered, in trying to control the identities themselves).

When Novell acquired SilverStream Software last month, it gained a fine software portfolio: a Web services-enabled Java IDE, an innovative Web services runtime environment, and a well-respected application server. But according to Gary Hein, VP of corporate architecture, Novell never had any illusion that it could compete in the application server arena--an ambition to which Sun still clings.

Instead, with the SilverStream purchase, Novell will deliver XML-based tools that enable enterprises to build and deploy Web services against eDirectory user identities. Hein also told me that Cambridge Technology Partners (the professional services organisation Novell acquired for $266 million last year) will make the most of this new software arsenal in rapid Web services development and deployment.

Cambridge Technology consultants already have an array of identity-based Novell products at their disposal. Earlier this year, Novell shipped its six-module Secure Access authentication and authorisation suite--which includes Novell's single sign-on product, SecureLogin. The Holy Grail of enterprise user identity, single sign-on enables employees to log in through any computer on the network and gain access to all the applications they're authorised to use. According to IDC, Novell SecureLogin has 30 percent of the budding single sign-on market.

Novell has also been active in XML directory standards. In May, the company helped close the gap between user identity and Web services by releasing a specification for linking LDAP and UDDI directories. And the latest version of eDirectory supports the Directory Services Markup Language, an XML protocol for linking together directories among business partners, as the Liberty Alliance proposes to do.

A Liberty Alliance member, Novell is poised to play a key role in solving the complex problem of hammering out and implementing the business rules for sharing identities among enterprises. And Web services that center on user identity and span multiple enterprises--whether for business users or consumers--will form the next generation of innovative, Internet-based applications.

Novell may become the Switzerland of identity. Sun and Microsoft are aggressively pushing whole platforms along with their directory servers, while IBM's SecureWay has yet to gain much traction. eDirectory can be deployed on non-Novell networks and has enjoyed a bump in market share lately, thanks to the company's decision to give it away.

Wherever eDirectory goes, Cambridge Technology and Novell's new development tools can follow, fostering new, identity-based Web services. I seriously doubt Novell will ever return to its former glory, when it owned 70 percent of the network operating system market. But it may have found its niche.

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