Novell is seeking to tempt small businesses deterred by the costs of upgrading to the next versions of Microsoft Office and Windows with the release of its Open Workgroup Suite.
The Novell Open Workgroup Suite bundles a number of products and services including Open Enterprise Server, GroupWise for collaboration, ZENworks Suite for cross-platform systems management, Novell Linux Desktop (including Open Office for Linux) and OpenOffice.org for Windows.
Richard Lindstedt, Novell Workgroup product manager, described the product as an open, low cost alternative to Microsoft Office – Novell claims the product is up to 70 per cent cheaper.
He said the target audience for the product is the small business space. “Our prime market are customers who have not been doing anything with their infrastructure for a while. They might be running Windows 2000 and Exchange 5.5. The reason they haven’t done anything yet is because upgrading is very expensive. This is a huge market.”
Lindstedt argued it was not enough just to talk about the benefits of open source with the Open WorkGroup Suite to small businesses. “We need to deliver the promise of lower cost as well. We need to deliver the flexibility for the customer to use the features and functionality they want at the right price.”
But he admitted Microsoft was a tough competitor in the small business market. “Novell has been seen as a technology company delivering products for the back end while Microsoft talks about the desktop. Customers don’t acquire workgroup suites for the back end but for what users are doing on the desktop. This is a big leap forward for us.”
It was difficult for companies to beat Microsoft on desktop features but Novell’s tactic is to question whether all the features are needed. “That’s not what we’re trying to achieve. We’re trying to give customers what they need,” Lindstedt said.
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