Editing Novell (section)

====NDS and other new products====
Novell's core products did not stay idle during this challenging-of-Microsoft time, as work in the company's NetWare Systems Group continued.<ref name="DH_WordPerfect_1994"/>
One of Novell's major innovations was Novell Directory Services (NDS), later known as [[eDirectory]]. It was based on the [[CCITT X.500]] standard and supported the notion of a distributed directory.<ref name="Proven_2013"/>  Introduced with [[NetWare 4.0]] in 1993, NDS replaced the old Bindery server and user management technology employed by [[NetWare 3.x]] and earlier.  Directory services were seen as a crucial strategic key to staying relevant in the networking marketplace.<ref name="BW_Knell_1996"/><ref name="BW_Schmidt_1997"/> It was also one where Novell had a lead over Microsoft, as the latter's [[Active Directory]] was not yet out.<ref name="BW_Schmidt_1997"/>

Then with UnixWare gone, Novell focused on major upgrades to its core NetWare-based network operating system.<ref name="CW_Novell_Roads_1995"/>  The initial release of NetWare 4 came with compatibility problems for some NetWare 3 users, and large enterprises were faced with an upgrade-all-or-upgrade-none decision.<ref name="NYT_Readies_1995"/>  However some 40 million users declined to move to NetWare 4, with the result that Novell lost large amounts of possible revenue in upgrades.<ref name="Age_NetWare_1995"/>  Although the NetWare 4.1 release of 1995 sought to remedy some of these issues, the lag had caused many Novell customers to take a serious look at Windows NT.<ref name="NYT_Readies_1995"/> And Windows NT was proving better as a platform for application and database services than NetWare.<ref name="BW_Knell_1996"/> Furthermore, Microsoft was having success with its no-extra-charge bundling of Microsoft's [[Internet Information Services|IIS web server]] on NT,<ref name="BW_Knell_1996"/> while Novell's presence in the Internet market was severely lacking.<ref name="BW_Schmidt_1997"/>  Still, as of 1996, by one estimate there were three million networks, and tens of millions of PCs, still using NetWare.<ref name="BW_Knell_1996"/>

In 1996, the company began a move into Internet-enabled products,<ref name="BW_Knell_1996"/> replacing reliance on the proprietary IPX protocol in favor of a native TCP/IP stack. Support for the new [[Java programming language]] also began to be added to NetWare.<ref name="BW_Knell_1996"/>  An Internet-focused product released during 1996 was called Intranetware.<ref name="NYT_Frankenberg_1996"/>

These moves were accelerated when [[Eric Schmidt]] became CEO in April 1997,<ref name="BW_Schmidt_1997"/> the first in the post since Frankenberg's departure; Christopher Stone was brought in as senior vice president of strategy and corporate development, reporting to Schmidt.  Many observers were surprised that Schmidt would leave his chief technical officer position at [[Sun Microsystems]], which at the time was doing very well, to go to Novell, which was viewed as a company in real trouble.<ref name="BW_Schmidt_1997"/><ref name="Wired_network_1997"/>  The new CEO said, "Novell has been defocused by a series of acquisitions and forays that didn't work out. In this collaborative world, it's more important to do a few things well and just go for them like you've never seen."<ref name="Wired_network_1997"/>

One result of these shifts was [[BorderManager]], released in August 1997, which supplied [[proxy server]], [[Firewall (networking)|firewall]], and other services for connecting NetWare networks to the Internet.<ref name="BW_Schmidt_1997"/>  Another was a new version of NDS, that was capable of running with Windows NT, not just NetWare.<ref name="BW_Schmidt_1997"/>
And still another was NetWare 5.0, released in October 1998, with hopes for it accelerating Novell's improved fortunes under Schmidt.<ref name="Age_NetWare_1995"/> NetWare 5.0 leveraged and built upon eDirectory and introduced new functions, such as Novell Cluster Services (NCS, a replacement for SFT-III) and Novell Storage Services (NSS), a replacement for the traditional [[Turbo FAT]] filesystem used by earlier versions of NetWare. While NetWare 5.0 introduced native TCP/IP support into the NOS, IPX was still supported, allowing for smooth transitions between environments and avoiding the "forklift upgrades" frequently required by competing environments. Similarly, the traditional Turbo FAT file system remained a supported option.