Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition to Be Released This September

Novell is said to announce later this September a desktop-and-server suite for small businesses. The Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition - as the software is said to be called - is based on Novell's Suse Linux distribution and includes the Open Enterprise Server for storage, user and rights administration, and clustering and failover capabilities.

The new suite will take in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, the OpenOffice.org productivity suite and Novell's GroupWise software for email and a calendar. Laurent Lachal, open-source research director with Ovum analyst firm, claims that this release represents a movement for attracting clients, fact that seemed to be a problem the company stumbled with while transitioning its business away from its NetWare network operating system to Linux.

"The small to mid-size business [SMB] market is the new frontier for everyone in the IT industry, whether it's Microsoft, SAP or IBM",says Lachal.

According to Novell, one license for its suite will support five servers and 200 users, while one license for Microsoft's Small Business Server tops out at 75 users. "By capping at 200 the number of users for a single license, it would appear Novell has set its sights on the US market" added Lachal. The Novell officials also comments in a statement: "The Novell edition of OpenOffice.org - which runs on both Windows and Linux desktops - provides 90 percent of the same functionality as Microsoft Office, supports Microsoft Office formats and is included with Novell Open Workgroup Suite at no extra cost". However, the vendor warned that users of Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 R2 suite would also have to buy Microsoft Office separately.

Novell Inc. is an American software corporation specialized in network operating systems such as Novell NetWare and SUSE Linux, secure identity management products, and application integration and collaboration solutions.