NEWS BRIEFS

Provo, UT — Novell, Inc. announced a Master License Agreement (MLA) with the U.S. Department of Army. This one-stop, army-wide contract simplifies the ordering process and provides a broad range of Army activities with the lowest available prices for purchasing, upgrading and maintaining Novell’s complete family of directory-based network software products. GE Capital, a Novell channel partner, was awarded the role of fulfilling the contract.

Central to the Novell products available through the Army MLA is Novell Directory Services (NDS), a leading directory software for management and control of diverse computer platforms, applications and network equipment such as Cisco routers used on heterogeneous networks and the Internet. NDS is a core component of Novell’s NetWare server platform and also available through the MLA for the Microsoft NT and Solaris UNIX platforms used in many parts of the Army.

“This blanket agreement with Novell represents an important new component of the Consolidated Software Maintenance Contract maintained by the U.S. Army Information Systems Support Center,” said Susan Padgett, computer specialist/contracting officer’s representative (COR), Acquisition and Distribution Directorate. “By consolidating all the Army software maintenance requirements for one vendor under one contract, we can reduce prices for the benefit of our Army clients and tax payers. In addition, Army users can now take advantage of a broader range of Novell software to simplify network management and integrate platforms and applications from multiple vendors.”

In addition to NDS and the NetWare server platform, the MLA supports directory-enabled Novell application products that make mixed-vendor Army networks easier to manage and use. These best-of-breed products include GroupWise collaboration and e-mail, ManageWise network management, ZENworks desktop management and software distribution with integrated Y2K auditing software, and the BorderManager family of Internet security management and performance caching services. Novell’s market leadership in Internet caching includes recent licensing of the Novell Internet Caching System for use in caching appliances by Compaq, Dell and other OEMs.

“As the Internet directory leader, Novell provides customers with an efficient way to manage and integrate the diverse resources on multi-vendor networks,” said Mike Mclaughlin, Novell vice president for major markets. “For Novell customers, that means the opportunity to more effectively manage change and get the greatest return on existing investments from Novell, Microsoft and other major vendors. Through this MLA, we are now positioned to expand the networking options and opportunities available to our many users in the U.S. Army.”

For more information visit http://www.novell.com/

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