SALT LAKE CITY (03/22/2004) - In an opening address Monday morning, Novell Inc. CEO Jack Messman told 6,000 customers at BrainShare that "Novell is back," referring to recent market interest and gains made with its support for Linux on the server and desktop.
The opening session featured a number of new products, as well as an appearance by Linux founder Linus Torvalds, who spoke briefly at the event.
Messman set the tone for BrainShare when he described a computer network at the show used to support multimedia displays, demonstrations and users that runs on SUSE Linux or Ximian, both products from acquisitions made by Novell.
"This year, BrainShare doesn't do no stinkin' Windows!" Messman yelled. The pro-Linux audience responded warmly to his comment, and many gave a standing ovation when Torvalds appeared later.
The products announced today include an open beta version of ZENworks 6.5, which offers new abilities to manage both Windows 2003 and Linux systems; two new open-source initiatives including plans to make SUSE's Linux systems management tool, YaST, available as open-source; and a move to put Novell iFolder technology into open-source. IFolder is a personal storage and filing offering.
Messman also said NetWare 7.0's release has been moved up by a full year and should now be out by the end of this year. It will be renamed Open Enterprise Server and will run on both the NetWare and Linux kernels.