It's decision day in the directory-service market, and an unlikely vendor could cast the swing vote in the looming showdown between Microsoft and Novell. The mystery player is none other than IBM.
While Microsoft is making bold -- and sometimes questionable -- claims about Windows NT 5.0's application support, sources say Novell is working to ink new directory-service deals with Big Blue and Caldera.
The victor in the directory-service face-off will control how users, printers, applications and security rights are managed on corporate networks. That's why Microsoft and Novell are racing to sign up as many directory-service partners as possible -- while striving to maintain standards compliance.
Publicly, Microsoft is continuing to talk directory interoperability via its ADSI (Active Directory Services Interfaces), issuing a beta version of ADSI 2.5 release just last week. Similarly, Novell is resisting the urge to take public potshots at Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., as it puts the finishing touches on NDS (Novell Directory Services) for NT 2.0, due out before the end of 1998.
Behind those facades, however, the directory-services war is in full swing.
Novell this month is expected to announce a partnership with Caldera to port NDS natively to OpenLinux. Caldera and Novell inked a deal earlier this summer enabling Caldera to sell a version of NetWare 4.0 for OpenLinux. But the new deal would go beyond that, resulting in a port of the latest NDS version and many of the related services that are part of NetWare 5.0, according to Caldera officials.
"We still have no contract with Caldera for NDS on Linux," concedes Novell director of marketing Michael Simpson. "But we do want to make sure NDS is available everywhere."
At the same time, Novell continues to lobby Cisco Systems to support NDS in addition to Active Directory, but so farit is having little luck. In a memo issued to Cisco's sales force earlier this month, company officials reiterated Cisco's commitment to Microsoft and said the company will integrate only Active Directory, not NDS, with its Cisco Networking Services software for NT and Solaris.
But Novell may be making new NDS inroads with a smaller -- but nevertheless significant - networking hardware partner: Cabletron Systems. An official for the company said it won't play favorites and is committed to supporting both NDS and Active Directory.
Caldera and Cabletron will certainly help Novell's NDS cause, but the one partner that could keep Novell on top is IBM. Indeed, Big Blue is rethinking its strategy to build an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) directory and may extend the NDS support to its NT suites, according to sources close to the company.
IBM already has promised to deliver NDS on AIX and OS/390. The next step, say sources, would be to fully embrace NDS on NT and scrap its own LDAP directory plans.
An IBM spokeswoman denies IBM is abandoning work on its own LDAP service. But Novell's Simpson notes that Novell is "in nonstop negotiations with all our big partners to do more with NDS, and we've never stopped talking to IBM. IBM has seven or more different directories throughout the company right now."
To be clear, Simpson says it's unlikely that Novell will be announcing any new NDS partnerships with IBM before the end of the calendar year. Nonetheless, Novell and IBM will partner this week, when the Provo, Utah, company's NetWare 5.0 road show arrives in Seattle. IBM will demonstrate NetWare 5.0 on its Netfinity servers at the seminar, which will focus on year 2000 and security issues.
At another Seattle facility, which literally is next door to the Novell event, Microsoft will hold its own NT 5.0 MiniCamp, where it will again highlight the benefits of Active Directory. Just last week, Microsoft evangelized Active Directory and NT 5.0 to the estimated 6,000 developers attending the company's Professional Developers Conference.
Attendees flocked to those futures sessions, but many were frustrated by Microsoft's reluctance to provide any updated NT 5.0 delivery-date information. While sources said last week that Microsoft has ambitious targets -- Nov. 20 for Beta 3 and a second-quarter 1999 final release -- officials remained mum.
"I can't give you a date for when we'll know the date for releasing NT 5.0 Beta 3," said NT Group Product Manager Mike Nash.
So far, it's unclear how many current 32-bit shrink-wrapped and custom applications will be forward-compatible with NT 5.0. One potential problem: The new NT file system could wreak havoc on existing utilities, concedes Craig Beilinson, Windows-client product marketing manager.
Nevertheless, Microsoft is pushing NT 5.0 Rapid Deployment Partners "real hard" to rapidly deploy the new OS, said an official with a systems integrator, who requested anonymity.
Clearly, Novell has other ideas.
Additional reporting by Michael Moeller and Scott Berinato, PC Week Online
