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Novell emphasises collaboration over competition with vendors

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Novell, the local area network software leader, has responded to Microsoft's aggressive expansion into enterprise networking by developing collaborative rather than competitive relationships with other networking vendors.

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Novell's strategy is to bundle its NetWare operating system and other networking software inside the servers of its hardware partners such as Compaq, HP, IBM and Acer.

An extension of that would be to train each other's staff to sell products and provide technical support.

Most importantly, Novell wants to make products such as its Novell directory service (NDS) work on Unix and NT, in addition to the company's NetWare, in order to form 'cross-platform networking solutions'.

The future of the networking business 'is not about NetWare versus NT versus Unix, but NetWare and NT and Unix', said Novell's marketing vice-president John Slitz.

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Novell wants to out-manoeuvre Microsoft by running NDS on top of NT servers in order to act as a central administrator for managing network resources, or to define clients' capabilities.

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