We haven't even arrived at BrainShare yet, but Novell has already announced lots of exciting new solutions. For example, at the recent LinuxWorld Boston, we announced a comprehensive range of offerings that will harden Linux for enterprise-class mission-critical operations. Novell is the only company able to deliver Linux for every enterprise need -- from desktops and workgroups to data centres and high-performance computing.

When the Government of Ontario directed several municipalities to consolidate in order to reduce government costs a few years ago, the City of Sudbury was the central consolidation point for 6 municipalities across a 30-mile area, each with diverse IT architectures. A small IT staff was suddenly responsible for managing nearly 75 locations including libraries, emergency services, water treatment plants, recreation facilities and transportation centres. The City selected Novell® ZENworks® Desktop Management to support the transition with tools for application distribution, imaging, inventory, remote control support and policy management. As a result, the City has reduced workstation administration time by 70%, and eliminated 80% of travel time and costs. They estimate that ZENworks paid for itself in just the first few months.

In an effort to provide better services to its 7 million citizens, the Hong Kong Government certified 4 vendors to provide identity management solutions to more than 100 of its departments. Novell today announced that 85% of these Government departments have selected Novell® Nsure® to meet their identity management objectives.

With 14,000 workstations across 100 U.S. locations, Allina Hospitals & Clinics needed an efficient way to manage its complex, disparate environment -- Allina runs a large Microsoft Windows environment as well as NetWare, UNIX and Linux. They evaluated desktop management solutions from Microsoft and others before selecting Novell ZENworks Desktop Management to support its enterprise. ZENworks enabled Allina to standardize its workstations, and can deliver new applications and patches across the enterprise in just hours, rather than days or weeks. Plus, ZENworks centralized IT management reduced desktop help calls by 50%, and significantly reduced IT travel time by allowing helpdesk staff to remotely fix over 40% of workstation-related issues.

The North East Independent School District in Texas stores user data primarily on a mainframe, and ran a diverse environment of NetWare, Microsoft Windows NT and UNIX servers across their 55 locations. Updating user data across the district's systems was a cumbersome and manually intensive process for a small IT staff. Plus, students and teachers had to remember multiple user names and passwords, creating frustration and login problems. But the school district solved the problems with a Novell Nsure solution that automated identity management. One of the most obvious benefits was elimination of 200 hours of manual user administration to provide new students with network access at the beginning of each school year.

Czech Post, the second-largest employer in the Czech Republic, relies on APOST, a customized system used by its 20,000 employees for all postal operations. APOST had been running across a disparate environment including DOS and Microsoft Windows NT, which was becoming too costly. They considered hardware upgrades to reduce costs, but that would have required significant software updates and increased training costs. So Czech Post decided to move to SUSE LINUX technology as the foundation of a new system. In just 10 months, they installed the new SUSE LINUX-based APOST system on 4,000 servers at 3,400 post offices across the country, as well as at 12,000 client terminals. The company now has a centralized infrastructure with support for remote monitoring that will significantly reduce administration costs.

In this exclusive interview with Stephen Ibaraki of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS), Jack Messman discusses Novell's Linux strategy and how organizations can leverage identity services and open source to get the most out of their IT investments. Plus, he gives his predictions about open source growth over the next few years.

Novell has been undergoing a dramatic transformation. The company has placed huge bets on open source, and is trying to leverage its Novell Directory Services legacy into an enduring identity services franchise. In this audio interview, Novell CEO Jack Messman gives a report card on Novell's progress, and discusses the many market and legal challenges the company is taking on.

Novell® Open Enterprise Server is now available to customers worldwide. Open Enterprise Server is a secure and reliable suite of services that combines NetWare® and SUSE® LINUX Enterprise Server to deliver proven file, print, directory, management, collaboration and application services. As a result, customers benefit from leading commercial and open source networking platforms along with integrated management tools, identity-based services and Novell's global support ecosystem to meet enterprise-class computing needs.

SUSE® LINUX Professional 9.3 will be available in mid-April, 2005. Including a complete Linux operating system, over 3,000 open source packages and hundred of open source applications, productivity software and home networking capabilities, SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3 provides the functionality, reliability and security that today's new and experienced Linux user needs for home computing and computing-on-the-go at an affordable price. SUSE LINUX Professional is offered globally via major retail channels and online shops.

Novell® ZENworks® 7 Linux Management, an integrated, complete management system for centralized control of Linux desktops and servers, is scheduled for release in the second quarter of 2005. With ZENworks 7 Linux Management, organizations can dramatically reduce the overhead required to manage Linux systems. As a result, organizations can quickly and easily deploy and manage Linux in their IT environment, lowering their total cost of IT operations. Novell ZENworks 7 Linux Management provides complete lifecycle management for Linux platforms, including SUSE LINUX and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, adding imaging, configuration lockdown, remote management, inventory and software management to extend its leadership in this fast growing market.

The growth of electronic health records, computerized physician order entry and tighter controls on patient information are just some of the challenges facing the healthcare industry. So Novell has unveiled a Clinical Workstation solution to help healthcare providers effectively secure and manage the increasingly complex data requirements. Leveraging Novell's industry-leading identity management and cross-platform network and web services, the Novell® Clinical Workstation solution will give doctors and caregivers quick, secure access to clinical information across their organizations, enabling them to spend less time at the computer and more time caring for patients.

Novell is expanding its presence at the heart of the enterprise, the data centre, to give customers the functionality and quality they demand, with greater flexibility at a lower cost. Leveraging the common code base of its SUSE® LINUX Enterprise Server, Novell is broadening its data centre solutions for a complete portfolio of enterprise computing solutions.

Novell® Open Enterprise Server, the world's first 'mixed-source' solution for the enterprise, is now available. Combining Novell ® NetWare® and SUSE® LINUX Enterprise Server, it delivers proven file, print, management, collaboration and application services, along with integrated management tools, identity-based services and Novell's global support ecosystem to meet enterprise-class computing needs.

GroupWise®, the award-winning collaboration solution, will remain an integral part of Novell's corporate strategy, with three releases planned over the next four years. Novell's recently unveiled roadmap firmly underscores the status of GroupWise, and emphasizes the vital role traditional Novell products play in the company's future. The next release of GroupWise, codenamed "Sequoia", is due to be released this summer, followed by two others in fall 2006 and spring 2008.

Novell has completed certification of the mySAP™ Business Suite on Novell's SUSE® LINUX Enterprise Server 9, significantly expanding the options for enterprise customers to deploy industry-leading SAP® solutions on Linux. Enterprises can now confidently deploy SAP solutions on SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9, as they benefit from new 64-bit computing performance enhancements of the 2.6 Linux kernel.

SUSE® LINUX Enterprise Server 9 has successfully completed a Common Criteria evaluation to achieve a new level of security certification - the first Linux distribution to complete Evaluation Assurance Level EAL4+. This new, higher level of certification enables Linux to be adopted by governments for mission-critical and command-and-control operations.

Novell and IBM have launched a joint promotion to encourage software developers to build applications for Novell's SUSE® LINUX Enterprise Server on IBM POWER platforms. Through March 2005, software vendors can evaluate SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 for IBM's POWER line of servers at no initial charge, including 90 days of online software updates from Novell at no cost.

Novell will deliver a range of Linux offerings for the enterprise to harden Linux for essential operations. The new initiatives include data centre Linux; attainment of a new security certification (CAPP/EAL4+); and the upcoming availability of Open Enterprise Server, a dual-kernel Linux and NetWare enterprise platform with integrated networking services. Novell also announced the formation of Hula, a new open-source collaboration project to expand alternatives to Internet e-mail and scheduling. Novell will contribute NetMail to the open source community as part of this initiative.

A convenient, comprehensive archive of Novell coverage in the Canadian media.

Novell BrainShare is the ultimate technical solutions conference where you can get in-depth insights and hands-on training directly from the product designers and experts. Whether you want additional training on a product already implemented into your infrastructure, or are considering a Novell solution to fit your business needs, BrainShare is the place to see it, touch it and experience it first-hand. Plus, more than 100 stations let you see product demonstrations, meet with product experts and personally experience amazing new technologies at work. JOIN US at our very own Canadian Reception on Monday at March 21, 2005! This year's reception is sponsored by Messaging Architects (Platinum sponsor), GWAVA, NetVision, Notify Technology and Omni Technology.

Novell is proud to be a platinum sponsor at this year's LinuxWorld Canada and NetworkWorld Expo, with 2,000 square feet of exhibit space, from April 18-20 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Building. The exhibition and conference focus on strategic technology and business hot spots, and boast the support of many prominent professional organizations. David Patrick, Novell's General Manager of Linux, Open Source Platforms and Services, will present a keynote address on April 19.

Catch up on all the Novell events and seminars coming to your city.