Novell? Aren't they down to trying to sell some free software they bought from some guys in Europe? No wonder their earnings are atrocious.
I would easily recommend Microsoft, Apple, or Sun products over Novell.
"I would easily recommend Microsoft, Apple, or Sun products over Novell."
Novell can't market its way outta a paper bag.
Given that, I'd stack up eDir against ADir any day of the week. And, this stuff runs on various hardware platforms, not just on one, like the ones you mention. In fact, Novell's products (other than O/S) run in various operating systems, something products from your vendors can't say.
I wouldn't... At least not Microsoft. As you know, I'm a former Novell specialist, and I've been working for a Windows shop for the last 3 months. 168 servers, 2 domains, 2 forests...
Compared with eDirectory, AD really SUCKS! Nowhere near as flexible. And the so called tools that MS gives you don't do a very good job of letting you see what's going on under the hood of AD. And there's no "real-time" monitoring of AD replication. Sure, there's replmon, but it's now been my experience that it doesn't tell you that something's going wrong until it's REALLY wrong. And trying to deal with the syntax of repladm is a nightmare. Netdiag and dsdiag are useful, but again, nothing really in "real time." What I wouldn't do for a tool like Novell's iMonitor or DSTRACE. And management is so much simpler, expecially for file and print services.
I'd take Zenworks over SMS in a heartbeat. And I like GroupWise SO much better than Exchange, from an administrative point of view.
No, I wouldn't buy Novell stock. The company's a disaster when it comes to marketing terrific software. But their products and technology are top rate.
Mark