Microsoft Corp.'s Active Directory Service (ADS) could be both the trump
and the wild card in the directory service game in 1998.
Yes, it's true that Microsoft's competitors have beaten the Redmond, Wash., software giant to the directory punch. But industry observers agree that even if Microsoft fails to ship its Windows NT 5.0-based ADS on time, it still will have a huge effect on corporate directory buying decisions this year.
"With NT 5.0 looming in the wings, you can't design, build or deploy a directory or any directory-enabled applications without first thinking about how it will interact with Active Directory," says Kim Cameron, chief scientist at Zoomit Corp., a Toronto-based meta directory vendor.
This push to NT 5.0 is compounded by users' desire to swap out the existing domain-based directory structure in favor of ADS.
Microsoft has taken great pains to detail its NT 5.0 plans publicly and has placed prerelease code in the hands of thousands of developers who will build applications that use ADS.
But not everybody is buying Microsoft's directory story hook, line and sinker. Pundits argue that Microsoft is using these tactics to stall the directory services market until it can get ADS out the door.
"Right now, all we really have is fear, uncertainty and doubt about what ADS is going to do," says Larry Gauthier, an analyst at The Burton Group, in Salt Lake City. "The fact is, Microsoft is working on a first-generation directory service."
Gauthier argues there are many reasons for choosing one of the other, already shipping, directories. Netscape Communications Corp. is in a strong position to pick up market share in the coming year because last December it shipped a third version of its Netscape Directory Server.
Frank Chen, Netscape senior product manager, claims his company's product is well suited for enterprisewide deployments because it is grounded. LDAP Version 3 has better security, data replication and international language support, he argues.
However, Novell has proven that NetWare users do indeed want an operating system-related directory, as more than 60% of its installed base runs Novell Directory Service (NDS) on top of NetWare. But in 1998, Novell will spend most of its energy convincing NT users that they can use NDS to centrally manage NT users and resources - before ADS is available.
