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On May 9, Novell Inc. announced a new package, the Novell Open Workgroup Suite, that is intended to go head to head with Microsofts Small Business Server.
In no coincidence at all, Microsoft had just announced its release candidate for Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 the day before.
Novell is billing the Novell Open Workgroup Suite as “The first workgroup suite for the open enterprise,” but the real selling point is that it is up to 70 percent cheaper than a similar Microsoft solution.
Actually, Novell has offered other Linux workgroup solutions before, with its Novell Linux Small Business Suite 9.
The Novell Open Workgroup Suite replaces both the Novell Linux Small Business Suite and the Novell Small Business Suite, and an inexpensive upgrade path is available for those products customers.
Novell Open Workgroup Suite customers will have two main options.
The first, for deployment with Linux servers and any desktop platform, includes Novell Open Enterprise Server, with SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) 9; Novell GroupWise 7 for e-mail and collaboration; Novell ZENworks Suite 7 for cross-platform systems management; Novell Linux Desktop 9; and, OpenOffice.org 2.0x for both Windows and Linux desktops.
The other, more expensive, option enables users to run the server side on either Linux or NetWare.