------------------------------------------------------------------------ NOV-SVY.DOC -- 19950920 -- Responses to Novell's "NW 4 wish list" survey ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Feel free to add or edit this document and then email it back to faq@jelyon.com Date: Fri, 22 Jul 94 15:23:00 PDT From: "Floyd Maxwell" To: jdickins@novell.com, billh@novell.com Subject: Informal Results of Netware 4 Survey Hello Novellers, I asked the NOVELL Internet list for feedback on the Netware 4.x survey questions as published in Information Week. I received 14 responses and have appended them back-to-back into the attached file: results.nw4 (The headers are retained for authenticity :-) I do not know who exactly at Novell should receive these replies so I am sending them to yourselves with the hope that you are able to forward them appropriately. I also hope that in the future Novell will *formally* utilize the services of the thousands of subscribers to the NOVELL list (and Novell related UseNet Groups) and the millions of users that they represent. My own comments RE Netware 4 would be as follows: [ : load SoapBox.NLM ] -- .0x releases are always a bit of a tough sell. Hurry up with .1 ! -- your competition is as much Netware 3.x as it is NTAS or Vines. You need to meet/exceed the stability, performance, compatibility, $/performance of 3.x to win upgrades ***NOT*** stop shipping 3.x in all its flavors (i.e. # of users) -- forcing people to buy a new product by stopping shipment of the old product is Un-American (in my _Canadian_ opinion :-). Win us over, don't force us. -- As one of the respondents mentioned, compression would be nice but the way you have implemented it (i.e. it requires space to decompress files rather than doing them truly on the fly) takes a lot of the value out of this feature sooooo fix the feature! Ditto VLMs ...ouch! -- people are worried that existing NLMs that are essential to the organization (e.g. Anti-Virus / Tape Backup / Client-Server ) will not/do not work yet on Netware 4.x Are you making it easy/desirable for vendors to upgrade their products to Netware 4? -- your pricing is sky-high in general. Frankly, with NTAS at $1,500 for an unlimited number of connections, I'm surprised there isn't a run on your company's stock. As systems people, our defense against high priced is to not upgrade. Think about it... -- Marketing -- if you want us to switch, make the price of Netware 4 *less* than 3.x, not _twice_ as much -- after all, we are getting a not-fully-bugged-out product. -- Become wildly more responsive to your users. The perfect example of your lack of care/concern/support/etc. is the treatment of the NOVELL Internet list -- other than 2 or 3 individuals at Novell, clearly putting their jobs/opinions on the line, you are largely ignoring this list (IMHO). I challenge you to find a more informed loyal and street-smart group that the people on this list. I also challenge you to find a group that is more influential. [ : Unload SoapBox.NLM ] Sincerely, Floyd Maxwell floyd@direct.ca Tel: 604-685-1832 HomePage: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/1610 Many people feel that the Internet is hopelessly complex. This is a gross exaggeration. Incredibly complex is a more accurate assessment. Actually, the Internet is no more difficult to fully comprehend than, say, life. - John Edwards (70007.412@compuserve.com) contributing editor, CompuServe Magazine ------------------------------ From: (Wanne Kler, de) Subject: NETWARE 4 SURVEY Date: Fri Jul 8 09:59:29 1994 ---------------------------- Survey Begins ----------------------------- The article listed 3 of the questions contained in the survey. Add your responses after each one or add any new comments at the end of this eMail. Q1. "Is NetWare 4 being accepted by enterprise customers?" YES! We did use netware right from version 4.00. If I look back at it it was quite a risk then but I haven't regret the upgrade (we used nw 2.15 before). Q2. "How should Novell position NetWare 4?" After the bugs are ironed out it should replace netware 3.11. But as this market is very conservative it will be very difficult to accomplish. Much depends on the support of third party software. If NDS support will take off then netware 4 can replace netware 3.X Q3. "Will AppWare help developers provide network applications that support NetWare 4?" I'm not very interested in appware, if the result is that I will get better applications soon, well then its ok for me. I'm more interested in a better Netware kernal soon. Other Concerns / Comments ------------------------- I think that NW 4 needs to be pushed soon or else windows NT will get to much market share. I don't like windows but Novell needs to support it better then it did before. Now Novell has its bought WP and Quattro these programs should be intergrated in Novell as much as possible. Maybe novell should ship a free trial package with each copy of Netware sold ? Novell should get more robust and faster. If we buy a database engine, the choice for Netware over Unix is difficult. People always say that Unix is faster and more stable. I read the comments of Joe D. about the bad netware diskcache and I think to myself: how can this still be possible after all the time they've had to improve it? Maybe its good that windows NT has appeared, I think that Novell needs to wake up and start improving netware faster than it did before. I know that much of the improvments are in the pipeline but the release dates of somewhere in 1997 don't look very good to me. And just a last general comment: if we want to get rid of the bugs in NW4 then Novell should accept bug reports by E-mail. Its a very cheap method, why don't they support this??? Just my .02 cents..... Wanne de Kler wdekler@nufficcs.nl ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jul 94 09:01 EDT From: "Scott.Smith" Subject: Survey RE NetWare 4 -------------------------- Survey Begins ------------------------------ The article listed 3 of the questions contained in the survey. Add your responses after each one or add any new comments at the end of this eMail. Q1. "Is NetWare 4 being accepted by enterprise customers?" We have over 60 Netware servers on our Campus backbone, and I can't think of maybe one or two that are 4.x. So, in our enterprise, it hasn't been accepted yet. For my department specifically, I would like to switch, but I can't find a compelling reason to, aside from wanting to have the latest and greatest. There have been many discussions between those of us who administer the LAN's on campus, and nobody has come up with one either. So most of us have stood pat on what we already have (generally 3.11). Plus, the cost is really prohibitive for me. I have been upgrading from our original 2.0a license (remember those keycards?), and in a way, I feel like my loyalty should be rewarded. Even with our Educational discounts, the price is pretty steep. Q2. "How should Novell position NetWare 4?" I really don't know how to answer this one. Obviously, with NDS it is designed from the ground up as an enterprise product, and that is what most observers have said needs to happen for Netware to continue to hold it's leading position.I don't know that they need to change that direction. For my part, if it was easier to switch over from 3.11, and if the cost wasn't so steep, I would be much more inclined to go with it. Setting up NDS has been a big obstacle because of the learning curve, and I am the only one in the Department with the technical background to even attempt it, and my time is committed elsewhere. The old "do more with less" method is catching up to me. (Am I whining here? I hope not!) Q3. "Will AppWare help developers provide network applications that support NetWare 4?" I am interested in AppWare because it will make my job as a programmer easier and faster. If NetWare 4 capabilities come as part of that, so much the better. [Will AppWare only work on 4.x?] Other Concerns / Comments ------------------------- Nope. Thanks for taking this on yourself though. I hope it helps. Scott Smith Systems Analyst Human Resource Information Systems Michigan State University per12@msu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jul 94 14:05:28 From: MARKO@carfax.com Sender: marko@carfax.com Subject: Netware 4.01 Hi, Thought I would let you know why I wont use Netware 4.01. FEAR. So much bad press about bugs, failures, in-compatability that I won't put my job on the line for a server upgrade. 3.11 works, that fine for me! Hope this helps, Happy surveying, Mark marko@carfax.com ------------------------------ From: "Prouty,A SSgt 1CS/SCCB" Subject: FW: Survey RE NetWare 4 Date: Fri, 08 Jul 94 09:27:00 +6 I would definitely like a copy of the results. We haven't changed over here (100+ servers) because of the rumors about the directory structure being so difficult to change. We are also reluctant to change to an unproven NOS knowing that v3.12 is solid. The cost/user ratio is also high. SSgt Alan Prouty, CNE DSN : 574-3520 DDN: proutya@lanmail.acc.af.mil 1CS LAN Team Comm: 804-764-3520 Langley AFB, VA Fax : 804-764-1003 Don't worry be happy! ------------------------------ From: Organization: Texas A&M University - Chem Eng Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 11:40:03 CDT Subject: Re: Survey RE NetWare 4 >------------------------- Survey Begins ------------------------------ > > Q1. "Is NetWare 4 being accepted by enterprise customers?" We did not feel that it was necessary to upgrade from NW3.11 to NW4.0, when it came out, since we were satisfied with what we have. The extra cost, and learning the new NW4, caused us decide not to go with it. NW4 is new, all the bugs are not ironed out. A quote we say around here, "New, with more bells and whistles, is not always better." Most anything that comes out with an X.0 on version number, I prefer not to have, because about 6 months later an X.1 version comes out to fix the X.0. So, I usually hold off until the X.1 version comes out. Our second server software, we chose to get 3.12. Even though, 4.0 has been out for a short while, we could buy two server packages for the cost it would coust us to get 1 NW4.0 server package. Also we have several applications running on our server, that have not yet converted to NW4.0 yet. When the time comes, we would think about upgrading the server software. > Q2. "How should Novell position NetWare 4?" Don't quite understand the question. Do you mean, how does it Rank? If so, compared to what, other Server software. Would not be able to compare it, have not used NW4.0, most like rank below 3.12. As time goes by, and applications are > Q3. "Will AppWare help developers provide network applications that > support NetWare 4?" Yes, I believe it would help developers produce more and better applications that would run on NW4. > Other Concerns / Comments > ------------------------- NW4 is a completely different BEAR than NW3.X. Since there have been so many people that have been using NW3.X, and have been satisfied with it for several years, making a transition for a major change is difficult. Many users, and administrators are satisfied with the command line option of getting to the necessary utilities to manage NW3.X. Some administrators don't like to search through several layers of menus to find what they are looking for, and would rather type in the command. It is faster, if you know what you are going, compared to searching a menu, that you are lost in. I guess all the new features in NW4.0 did not out way the (Price difference, Familiarities, Application availability) of NW3.X. These are my opinions, not necessarily the opinions of others. James Munnerlyn Texas A&M University Email: jdm7140@chennov1.tamu.edu Chemical Engr. Dept. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jul 1994 11:36:05 -0500 From: "Mark H. Wood" Subject: Re: Survey RE NetWare 4 >The article listed 3 of the questions contained in the survey. Add your >responses after each one or add any new comments at the end of this eMail. > >Q1. "Is NetWare 4 being accepted by enterprise customers?" Apparently not. How would I know what an entire market is doing? >Q2. "How should Novell position NetWare 4?" I think they have it right, but they haven't sold the idea of integrating the enterprise. Novell's verbiage seems to take it for granted that everybody knows what an environment like NW4 is good for and has been waiting impatiently to receive it. No wonder they are surprised. >Q3. "Will AppWare help developers provide network applications that > support NetWare 4?" Dunno. >Other Concerns / Comments >------------------------- I think that a lot of the problem with NW4's lack of market penetration has been loud cries of alarm from people who are scared to death of something like a distributed directory service, because they haven't invested a bit of time in learning to understand it and make use of it. NW4 isn't like anything that Novell has done before, and that frightens some people. I think it might also help if NDS were *real* X.500 and not just a workalike. Like it or not, customers are not going to throw away millions of dollars' worth of existing systems and rush to put everything on little desktop boxes, no matter how powerful the desktops have become. NDS needs to interwork with other parts of the X.500 directory, and if it becomes one of the best products for serving and managing directory information then it can be sold even to organizations that don't have much use for massive file server networks. NDS is definitely the sticking point, IMHO. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt about compatibility between 4.0x and 4.1 NDS implementations is making a lot of people wait and see, and simple fear of a complex beast like a directory is keeping others from considering the advantages of a single distributed bundle of services. Inability to interwork with other existing directory servers makes it seem like a point solution, to the people who *do* look for enterprise solutions. Mark H. Wood, Lead Systems Programmer +1 317 274 0749 [@disclaimer@] Internet: MWOOD@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU BITNET: MWOOD@INDYVAX ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Jul 1994 21:50:55 +1000 From: Julian Byrne Subject: Re: Survey RE NetWare 4 You don't need a great long survey. The answer is simple: v4 is still *far* too buggy for an enterprise network. I "upgraded" to v4 two months ago. I've been regretting it ever since, and I'm a technophile used to being on the bleeding edge. Regards, Julian Byrne Intelligent Robotics Research Centre Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering Department Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia +61 3 90 55713 BH +61 3 5448133 x386 AH +61 3 90 53454 FAX ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Jul 94 16:24:46 gmt From: cheekd@100arw.mildenhall.af.mil Subject: Re: Survey RE NetWare 4 --------------------------- Survey Begins ------------------------------ The article listed 3 of the questions contained in the survey. Add your responses after each one or add any new comments at the end of this eMail. Q1. "Is NetWare 4 being accepted by enterprise customers?" I think it would be accepted better if Novell ramped up their technical support with some real people that answer the phones for NetWare 4 problems/questions. They could also provide alot more free NDS and general NetWare 4 training for the cost of the product. We have had our 10 server/1800 user NetWare 3.11 MAN in operation for 2 years - that costed about $60000 just in NetWare operating system software. Now, I have to pay $40000 to upgrade this almost-new software just to give myself new headaches, plus retrain our system administrators and users. What is Novell doing to help us? NOTHING... I'm beginning to think seriously about NTAS just because of the cost - Novell needs to wake up and smell the coffee. We don't have bottomless pockets. Q2. "How should Novell position NetWare 4?" As an Enterprise NOS with large-workgroup benefits too. But bring the price down or nobody will buy it. I almost fainted when I saw $40000 for a 1000-User license - that's insane. They should be providing WordPerfect Office with the NetWare NOS for that kind of money. Or at least some useful management features such as software distribution, dial-in access, license monitoring, virus protection, etc. NetWare alone is not an enterprise solution, we have to purchase and integrate 10 other products to make it an easy-to-use, safe, secure, manageable system. Look at Microsofy NTAS and Hermes (I know Hermes is still vaporware, but look out, it's coming soon). Q3. "Will AppWare help developers provide network applications that support NetWare 4?" If it's easy to use and affordable. Most network managers don't have staff or time to develop applications. We want NetWare provided apps or off the shelf software that's easy to customize and integrate. And we want Microsoft and Novell to bury the hatchet, grow up, and build products/services that work together. There's plenty of money out here if you have good solutions that will make our users and our jobs easier. I'm getting sick and tired of waiting for months for Novell/Microsoft to develop patches/fixes/upgrades just to make simple apps and requestors work together. It almost makes you want to go back to the mainframe - at least it works without black magic and endless nights downloading new files/fixes and waiting for Novell tech support to call you back some day. Dennis R. Cheek 100 ARW Base MAN Engineer RAF Mildenhall, England A loyal Novell user, but keeping an open mind. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 17:55:09 From: C.OWEN@qut.edu.au Subject: Re: Survey RE NetWare 4 >If you would like a copy of final cummulative response, let me know. Yes please. >-------------------------- Survey Begins ------------------------------ >The article listed 3 of the questions contained in the survey. Add your >responses after each one or add any new comments at the end of this eMail. >Q1. "Is NetWare 4 being accepted by enterprise customers?" Very slowly. The change to NDS is a major step and I don't think most organisations are comfortable with the available tools for migration and maintenance. >Q2. "How should Novell position NetWare 4?" They have to build critical mass. Positioning it as a solution for enterprise networks only isn't going to achieve this as developers are stuck with supporting for bindery and NDS. I think they ought to position NetWare 4 as the NOS for everyone (after all it comes in stratifications down to 5 users) and kill of bindery based NetWare. They need good migration tools first though. >Q3. "Will AppWare help developers provide network applications that > support NetWare 4?" Good question, I wish I knew! >Other Concerns / Comments >------------------------- Server based licensing costs ... it's awfully expensive supporting multiple servers in environments where each user needs access to more than one server (NW4's target market!) ... compare with NTAS' client license model (in WFW) which handles this better. regards, Chris Owen | c.owen@qut.edu.au Systems Manager, Computer Based Education | phone +61 7 864 2912 Queensland University of Technology | FAX +61 7 864 1525 Brisbane, Australia | ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jul 1994 12:34:11 Subject: Survey RE NetWare 4 From: gkirk@gkirk.win.net (Gregory Kirk) other comments: One major reason that we have not even considered moving to Neware 4.x is that we have seen no real need to do so. Our organization has a total of 4 servers, and this number is unlikely to grow substantially. I know of a great many netWar shops in essentailly the same position, relatively few servers on no visible pressing need to go to 4.0. The need may not be seen because we are unaware of the real benefits offered by 4.x, so this may be a result of poor marketing/education by Novell. I believe Novell need to explain the benfits of NDS it user base, and show the cost effectiveness fo the upgrade. P.S. I would like to see the summary when it is complete. Greg Kirk, C.N.E. gkirk@gkirk.win.net CIS 71141,1554 Home (909)867-5991 Bus (909)335-6437 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 13:55:45 -0600 (MDT) From: Joe Doupnik Subject: Re: Survey RE Netware 4, Last Call (& a mini-flame RE Mr. Roos) Roos summary: well done. NW 4 survey. I did not know such was in circulation. However, let me stick my neck out and provide a few opinions from my place. NDS is a disaster. Poor conception, poor execution, belief over substance. Interoperability with NW 3 is fair or less, saying NDS does not come close to emulating a bindery. User and admin utilities are much worse than NW 3. If NW 3 and 4 were to have come from different companies then the NW 4 outfit would be looking for jobs in a non-networking field. Good points. More stable kernel, with promise of better things to come deep inside. Reuse of disk allocation units is great. Disk compression is a lot less interesting than might be thought because files still need expansion to be used (and we can run out of space for that expansion). Better handling of memory, compared to NW 3. Better console. Joe D. ------------------------------ From: jerware@netcom.com (Jerome Ware) Subject: Survey RE NetWare 4 a Reply Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 00:15:19 -0700 (PDT) Cc: jerware@netcom.com >-------------------------- Survey Begins ------------------------------ > > The article listed 3 of the questions contained in the survey. Add your > responses after each one or add any new comments at the end of this eMail. > > Q1. "Is NetWare 4 being accepted by enterprise customers?" I have a couple of large customers that have standardized on Netware 4.0 usually they have 100's of servers and are having problems managing them. > Q2. "How should Novell position NetWare 4?" As an enterprise solution, and if they get it working as a any size solution. > Q3. "Will AppWare help developers provide network applications that > support NetWare 4?" Anything that eases the developement cycle makes any adoption easier, if users could right their own applications it would revolutionize computing. Wasn't that what the PC revolution was/is about? > Other Concerns / Comments > ------------------------- If I ever see DSMerge I might think about recommending it to my customers. I cater to fortune 200 client and the early adopters ended up with lots of problems. Builds after 296 seem to be more stable. Reminded me of DOS 2.0 when the directory concept was introduced to DOS, waited until version 3.2 before it was stable. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 10:09:03 +0100 From: J.Harrison@bra0112.wins.icl.co.uk Subject: NW4 survey reply Here's a survey form filled out by one of our guys (Marcus Gould) who's done a lot on NetWare 4.01 - but he's still got some of his marbles :) I noticed in your latest post on the Novell list you say you also want to know how many systems we have; the answer is "a lot". We're a hardware and software manufacturer (a subsidiary of Fujitsu) and we have quite a few NW4 systems for inhouse use plus a (lesser!) number that we actually have sold. Sorry I can't put exact numbers on it. We still find most people go for 3.12, the ones who want 4.01 are the ones who absolutely must have the latest greatest everything and think "4 is more". It cuts no ice at all to tell them that 4.01 is really aimed at larger networks and so on. Here's the survey form, it doesn't represent the official views of ICL, blah disclaimer blah etc. BTW I would love it if you would mail me (and/or post to the list) an overall conclusion of what other people replied. Joe ICL Ltd. Bracknell Berkshire RG12 8SN UK (+44-344-473424) * J.Harrison@bra0112.wins.icl.co.uk * * S=Harrison/I=J/OU1=bra0112/O=icl/P=icl/A=gold 400/C=GB * ------------------------snip------------------------------------- Q1. "Is NetWare 4 being accepted by enterprise customers?" I think they're waiting for the version number to move up from a ...0 to a .1 increment. They don't trust it yet. I know of few large companies who are giving it serious validation. Secondly, it takes one hell of a lot of commitment to take V4 to its logical conclusion, think of all the existing systems that would need to be ousted, think of all the IT managers whose buy-in you'd need. NetWare 4 is too much revolution and not enough evolution. If you could add NDS functionality (not just Bindery Emulation) to NetWare 3.xx so that existing networks can be joined together bit-by-bit it would allow the whole concept of NDS to sneak in and take hold in much the same way as Unix has over the years. Nobody noticed scattered Unix boxes all over a company until somebody decided to join them all together. Q2. "How should Novell position NetWare 4?" Make the distinction clear on what it is all about. Some folk just install it because they think it is the latest version of NetWare - why else would we end up with 2 server systems with 20 users on? Don't forget also that NDS can reflect a company organisation. In Britain many companies/enterprises function as entirely autonomous entities, with little co-operation between units, large or small. You have to think of a marketing ploy that will overcome in-bred and cultural problems concerning British Industry and in particular the bureaucracy and hopeless "Us and Them" management. With NetWare 3, departments could continue empire building and not give a damn what anybody else in neighbouring departments were doing. NetWare 4 asks a great deal of co-operation. It's no use telling them it is for the common good either! Q3. "Will AppWare help developers provide network applications that support NetWare 4?" N/A Other Concerns / Comments Let's face it, within the support industry, NetWare 4 has a reputation as being bugged to hell. Once it is stable platform, it must be given a version number to reflect that. As I said earlier, the industry is cynical enough not to trust anything that is version x.0. Fix the bugs, call it NetWare 4.11 and you'll be sorted! -end- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jul 94 15:20:12 PDT From: ma_crist@qmail4.nba.trw.com (Mike Crist) Subject: Re: Survey RE Netware 4, Last Call (& a mini-flame RE Mr. Roos) Organization: TRW/DSP You wrote: > > [For those who tuned in late, Novell sent out a survey to industry > analysts, journalists, and users (but not NOVELL@suvm.syr.edu) to > try to determine why Netware 4 was plagued by "poor sales".] > > One thing I never asked in the original 3 question "survey" (avail. on > *direct* request) was for repliers to mention how large their sites were, > in terms of # of servers and # of users (i.e. potential $ to Novell). > > Thanks to those who have responded so far, The reason Netware 4.X sales are so bad is because it is an immature product. People aren't going to jump off of something that works (i.e. NW 3.11) onto something that hasn't proven itself. BTW, my site uses Banyan VINES and soon Banyan ENS for Solaris. If you want a true enterprise solution for your Novell networks, get Banyan's ENS for Netware. Then you will have a directory service (StreetTalk) which has proven itself in massive installations around the world for TEN YEARS, not a toy like NDS! Regards, Mike Crist TRW ma_crist@qmail4.nba.trw.com