Novell: It is our Destiny

Networking software provider Novell announced a new strategy to tie its flagship eDirectory to the growing Web services and Internet user identity management trends. As part of a strategy it calls "Destiny," Novell plans to augment its directory services management software--essentially a white pages for network resources--over the next 18 months with new functions covering Web services technologies and identity and policy management, among other areas. The additional functions will be, in most cases, free, according to a Novell executive.

Support for Web services technologies includes a forthcoming Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) server, as well as support for Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). These technologies are regarded as the foundation for an emerging set of Web-based services being built by software developers. The new thrust for Novell's eDirectory was announced Monday as part of this week's conference in San Francisco hosted by industry consultants the Burton Group.