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By Dave Kearns

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Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. His most recent book is Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks. Dave's company, Virtual Quill, provides content services to network vendors: books, manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill provides "words to sell by..." Find out more at www.vquill.com or by e-mail at info@vquill.com.

Kearns also writes Network World newsletters on Windows Networking, Directories and NetWare.

Fun makes 10 years fly: 12/12/05; The time certainly has flown since December 1995, when Wired Windows first graced the pages of Network World. If Mencken is correct, it's high time I escaped before the madness overtakes me.
The Network MVP of the year is . . .: 11/28/05; Kim Cameron and his Seven Laws of Identity have done more to stimulate talk about Identity Services than even the federal government and its Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and other regulatory fiats.
Skeleton in Web app closet: 11/14/05; It's not too early to be active with warnings to your users about the hidden pitfalls of Web-based applications that are beyond their (and your) control. Creating whiz-bang output is only good as long as you can read it. Betamax video and eight-track audio also were once the latest technology.
Is Novell sale for real this time?: 10/31/05; Over the 10 years I've penned this column, I've written, more than once, about rumors that Novell was about to be acquired. For the most part, I offered reasons that the rumor wouldn't become true. This time I'm not ready to quash the rumors.
Google poses no threat to Microsoft: 10/17/05; Google's chief competitor would be someone else pursuing the same revenue stream: content of all types driving advertising sales. The Walt Disney Co. has more to fear from Google than Microsoft does.
Massachusetts Open Doc moves lack logic: 10/03/05; At the risk of offending many of the fine folks who produce this excellent periodical and who live in the Bay State - has the government of Massachusetts gone plumb loco?
SMB: Size doesn't matter: 09/19/05; If Microsoft truly was listening to its customers, then it would know we want these services and applications, but also that we want to customize our own solution set to fit the needs of our business - no matter how many PCs we have.
Novell nets takeover talk: 09/05/05; Novell released its third-quarter financial results a couple of weeks ago (its fiscal year runs ends Oct. 31), and the picture wasn't very pretty.
SCO OpenServer takes heat: 08/22/05; OpenServer 6, UnixWare 7 and the upcoming Fusion remind me of nothing more than the late, lamented IBM OS/2 operating system - outstanding quality that no one was interested in buying.
Is Vista vision, revision?: 08/08/05; When I heard the name announcement, I didn't think of Schwarzenegger's quote from "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." No, I thought back to the old Fibber McGee and Molly radio program. Fibber lived at 79 Wistful Vista, and wistful ("Full of wishful yearning," according to the dictionary) was how I felt, with a yearning to finally get this operating system onto retail shelves.
A network question: 07/25/05; The OpenSSO project, if it follows the trend of other major open source projects, should lead to very workable, easily implemented and very inexpensive ESSO. That means if you don't already have an ESSO project implemented or in planning, you'll soon be facing enormous pressure to do so.
Taking RSS up a notch: 07/11/05; As for allowing new malware to enter your computer, an RSS feed is just a stream of XML data - like all Microsoft Office documents will be starting with the next release. Either it's the silly season or there hasn't been enough bad news lately!
User project should send up red flags at Novell: 06/27/05; Novell wants to move NetWare customers onto the SuSE Linux platform, and people with loyal ties to Novell may be listening to that pitch, but those without a stake in NetWare don't seem to be.
Novell: The old cash cow ain't what she used to be: 06/13/05; Novell's recent quarterly financial announcements brought a good news-bad news mix for NetWare that's almost becoming the permanent snapshot for the company.
Running Microsoft's R2 up a flagpole: 05/16/05; Start thinking about what you might want to accomplish with this "refreshed" Windows Server 2003, but be sure not to plan to roll it out anytime this year - it won't be ready.
Apple: Predator or protagonist?: 05/02/05; Tiger is Apple's fourth release in five years - and the company seems proud of that fact.
Compliance: A horse is a horse: 04/18/05; One of the hottest topics over the past year is "compliance auditing."
A Novell BrainShare debriefing: 04/04/05; Low-key. That's how I'd sum up Novell's annual BrainShare conference, which I attended two weeks ago.
Microsoft getting Active Directory right: 03/21/05; Active Directory finally is taking its rightful place as the platform for all sorts of services in the realm of identity management. It finally might be fulfilling its promise.
Novell: Long-term memory problems?: 03/07/05; Novell's Jack Messman might be one of the last honest businessmen, unafraid to change his mind and his company's direction, but never afraid to tell the truth when he discovers it. On the other hand, he simply might not be able to remember what his company's marketing message was just a few years ago. I'm betting on the latter.
Novell targets healthcare with new workstation: 02/21/05; Novell Clinical Workstation promises to not only make life easier for the users but make a longer life possible for many people.
Novell builds case for Open Enterprise Server: 02/07/05; Just as Win 95 "bridged the gap" between the 16-bit DOS/Windows3 world and that of the fully 32-bit Windows 98, so, too, does the upcoming release of Novell's Open Enterprise Server (OES) seek to bridge the gap from the closed, proprietary realm of NetWare to the open source Linux world.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?: 01/24/05; Yes, it was five years ago this month that Bill Gates handed over the title of Microsoft CEO to Steve Ballmer, while retaining the title of chairman of the board, and writing chief software architect on his business cards. Because Gates had been the company's only CEO up until that time, many were poised to see what changes the new CEO might bring.
Taking a look at the year ahead: 01/10/05; Now, my fearless forecast for 2005: Novell's Open Enterprise Server will surpass sales expectations. But a few minor but nagging problems will keep it from being a total success. ...
The truth about the NetWare client for Linux: 12/13/04; The bottom line is that there will be a true NetWare client for Linux (but it will be called the "Novell" client for Linux) early next year. This will be the functional equivalent of the standard "Client32" implementation for Windows desktops.

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