Novell Attacks SMB Market with Small Business Suite

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Having a trimmed down version of an operating system that is targeted at small- and mid-sized businesses is not a new idea. SMB shops have different needs and skill sets--particularly very small customers--than big midrange shops or larger enterprise shops. One size has never fitted all--this was the case with NetWare, with Windows, with Unix, and with Linux. NetWare was an SMB platform from the get-go, and Unix vendors never seemed to understand the SMB market at all. But Microsoft and Linux distros like Novell have SMB in their blood. They get it.

That's why Novell has upped the ante in the SMB space by announcing Linux Small Business Suite. This is more than a cut-down Linux server aimed at SMB shops. In fact, Linux SBS is not a cut-down version of Linux at all. It has the core SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 software that comes in the full-blown SLES 9 server that Novell has been selling since last August. It also includes the Apache 2.0 Web server, plus the integrated firewall and virtual private networking software that SLES 9 has. If Novell had just stopped there and said it could only run on servers with one or two processors, it would have created something more akin to Microsoft's own Windows 2003 Small Business Server or the former SUSE's Linux 8 Standard Edition, which was a streamlined version of SUSE aimed at SMB shops that SUSE announced in October 2003 and came to market.

But Novell didn't stop there, because it correctly understands--as does Microsoft and as does IBM's iSeries business--that SMB customers want to buy one set of software for a couple of servers that does just about everything they need. To that end, Novell's new Linux SBS 9 includes its GroupWise 6.5 email, calendaring, and groupware server as well as licenses to Linux Desktop 9, the new desktop variant of SLES 9 that is behind Sun Microsystems' Java Desktop System software and that Novell will be positioning against Windows in corporate accounts that are tired of all the feature creep in Windows and the security risks. Linux Desktop 9 includes the OpenOffice office suite, which is a clone of the Microsoft Office suite, plus the Evolution email client, the Firefox Web browser, and a multi-network instant messaging client that spans AOL, Yahoo, and MSN networks.

Linux SBS 9 has a license that allows it to be run without any additional licensing fees on up to three distinct servers, which is important. The fact is, small companies are cheap and they would only buy one license and replicate that software to multiple servers anyway. And as long as Novell didn't tie a license to a specific machine, Novell would have been none the wiser, either. Besides, Novell doesn't own SUSE Linux (or any other Linux, for that matter), and customers can download it without paying a dime for it anyway. Novell giving customers tech support on up to three servers is just a measure of goodwill and good sense.

Linux SBS 9 also includes licenses and support for up to 100 desktop clients, which is a new twist on the whole SMB server racket. Microsoft doesn't do this, and neither has SUSE or Red Hat in the past. And Novell is being smart and realizes that even though some shops would love to move entirely to Linux on both desktops and servers, their end users have many applications that cannot be changed to Linux variants. So the SUSE server at the heart of Linux SBS 9 is licensed to talk to up to 100 Linux or Windows clients--the customer gets to choose.

The suite also includes Novell's eDirectory 8.7.3 for managing server access and directories and iManager 2.0.2 for managing the server. It does not include the current ZENworks 6.5 systems management software, and it will not include the forthcoming ZENworks 7 software. If you want Novell's top-end management tools and you are a small business, you are going to have to pay for them.

Linux SBS 9 will be available starting on March 31. The base server costs $475 for a five-user license. That license comes with five free technical support incident calls, which is worth many thousands of dollars at Novell's current support pricing. (Last year, when Guild Companies was negotiating with Novell for its own support, Novell was trying to charge $5,800 for a 10-incident support contract, which is way overkill in terms of price and the number of incidents for SMB shops. I told the top brass at Novell they were crazy, and I certainly didn't pay them a dime for tech support. This new Linux SBS 9 pricing and support seems much more reasonable.) If you want to get upgrade protection on an annual basis for Linux SBS 9, you pay $150; if you want to get upgrade protection for as long as you want to use the product, you can pay Novell $231.

Customers with the NetWare SMB product server, which is called Novell Small Business Suite 6.5 and which pre-dates the SUSE acquisition by years, can deploy Linux SBS 9 for free and can run NetWare and Linux side-by-side. (Novell didn't say so, but presumably customers with active support on SUSE Linux 8 Standard Edition can also get Linux SBS 9 for free, too.) Shops with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, or Windows 2003 servers or the Small Business Server 2000 or Small Business Server 2003 variants of these platforms, or with any prior edition of NetWare or the NetWare-based Small Business Suite, have to pay $252 to upgrade to Linux SBS 9. It is unclear what it costs to add each Linux SBS 9 user above the initial five users and up to the maximum of 100 users.

Linux SBS 9 will be available in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese.