Novell to push NDS as Internet directory linchpin

LAS VEGAS - Novell this week will use the Comdex trade show stage to tout Novell Directory Services (NDS) as an Internet directory of user names and purchasing information for electronic commerce companies. The move is drawing mixed reviews from industry analysts and customers.

As part of the strategy, Novell says its newest version of the directory, NDS Version 8, will be available separate from the NetWare network operating system. NDS is for use by companies looking to build customer and partner relationships, as well as to integrate their supply chain functions. New versions of NDS for Solaris and Linux will also be available. Previously, NDS was only available for Windows NT and OS/390.

Using Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML), Novell will create connectors between NDS and users' supply chain or customer databases. This capability will let online business be conducted more easily and predictably, Novell contends.

Novell CEO Eric Schmidt will describe the firm's e-directory initiative in his Comdex keynote address. Cisco, Nortel and Lucent, among others, have agreed to develop directory-enabled quality-of-service applications and directory-enabled products and software around the Novell initiative, which is being called e-coPartners and e-coIntegrators. Novell will also announce three participants in the .com market that will use NDS as their ecommerce directory of choice, according to a Novell source.

Greg Weiss, an analyst for D. H. Brown in Port Chester, N.Y., says he is skeptical that Novell will succeed in this e-commerce foray. Weiss contends that Web site developers are more likely to use databases than directories to store user lists and logon information.

"Novell needs to target its marketing around why its [directory] approach is better than databases for stuffing names and passwords," Weiss says. "The company has to make it easier for a Web developer to use NDS as a user-authentication database than some home-grown database he or she devel-ops, and Novell needs to help Web site developers correlate information into NDS."

One customer expressed more optimism. Chuck Yoch, chief network architect at Janus, a mutual fund company in Denver, sees the directory as a perfect repository for data and authentication information.

"Our market is going to get a whole lot more interesting when we find all that we can do with directory-enabled networks and the services they can provide for us," he says. "We're looking at DirXML [Novell's directory synchronization tool] and DSML right now to see what they can do for us."

Samm DiStasio, a Novell product manager, says that because NDS is able to authenticate users securely within a network, it is a natural for e-commerce policy and user management in companies that want to capture and store customer relationship information.

Also as part of Comdex, Gadzoox, a Novell partner, will demonstrate a Fibre Channel hub that the company claims is the first NDS-managed hub. Other vendors, such as business-process company Oblix, will also make announcements with Novell. Oblix will use NDS as a repository for information gathered by its eProvision Employee software, which uses the directory as a common source for company information on a person.

Laura Didio, an analyst with Giga Information, says Novell has a good opportunity to recast itself as a Web directory services provider. "Despite the company's best efforts to sink itself because of bad marketing, the repeated delays of Windows 2000 and the churn in the e-commerce market are allowing customers to give Novell a second look," she says.