Novell and Nexor form partnership to help secure eCommerce

SAN FRANCISCO, California (RSA Conference), 9 April 2001 - Novell Inc, the leading provider of Net services software, today announced a partnership with Nexor, a provider of secure messaging and directory solutions, to integrate X.500 directories, a common directory standard for security, with Novell's industry-leading NDS® eDirectory™ network infrastructure.

Nexor will develop technology to connect X.500 directories to eDirectory using Novell's DirXML™ integration software, enabling customers to leverage eDirectory to share and synchronise core corporate data within the enterprise and across the network to eBusiness partners. The new technology will solve a significant infrastructure challenge in the government, military and financial services sectors, which use X.500 directories extensively for transaction security.

The technology developed through this partnership will allow eDirectory to be fully interoperable with X.500 standard directories and to support the many applications that rely on the X.500 standard protocols, including DAP, DSP and DISP. By extending DirXML support to X.500 directories, Novell helps organisations to solve the costly and time-consuming problem of updating and sharing information stored in their X.500 directories with other applications, databases and directories, both within the enterprise and in partner systems.

'While eDirectory has always been based on X.500 standards, support for the native X.500 protocols has been missing,' said Paul Smart, Vice President and General Manager of Novell's Net Directory business. 'We chose to partner with Nexor because its X.500 directory expertise enables us to bring a much-needed product to market faster. Adding support for these key protocols completes the X.500 standard support in eDirectory, enabling our customers to use the industry-leading directory service for their standards-based applications.'

'Directory interoperability is essential to an organisation's implementation of critical security systems and services,' said Ed Harrington, Vice President of Business Development for Nexor. 'Our partnership with Novell provides its customers with the ability to interoperate with X.500 systems, which are popular worldwide for the management and repository of X.509 security certificates. This opens up new markets for both Nexor and Novell.'

Pricing and Availability

The X.500 driver will complement the growing list of directory and application drivers that are available from Novell. It is expected that licences for the DirXML driver will be available to customers in Q4 at $10 US per user through Novell, channel and consulting systems integrator partners.

About Novell

Novell Inc (NASDAQ:NOVL), is the leading provider of Net services software that delivers services to secure and power all types of networks - the Internet, intranets, and extranets; wired to wireless; corporate and public - across leading operating systems. Novell's Net services software provides the foundation for one Net, which is a single global network that supports new applications and forms of business. Worldwide channel, consulting, education and technical support programmes, along with strategic alliances, combine Novell® Net services software with third-party products and services to form complete Net solutions.

For information on Novell's range of products and services, visit www.novell.com. Members of the press can access announcements and company information at www.novell.com/pressroom. Detailed comparisons between Novell's products and those of other vendors are available at www.novell.com/competitive.

Novell, NetWare and NDS are registered trademarks, and eDirectory and DirXML are trademarks, of Novell Inc in the United States and other countries. All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

For further information, please contact Wendy Draper.