Novell Chooses Apple

Description

Local Area Networks: NetWare integrates AppleTalk with Ms- Dos networks

Main Article Text

Novell has also decided to ride the growing wave of popularity that Apple is receiving from computer users. Proof of this is the announcement of NetWare for Mac and of NetWare 2.15. The first news of this latest marriage of connectivity between the world Ms- Dos and the domain of Apple became official at the beginning of the month, when the presidents of both companies held a joint conference. Since then, Novell and Apple have organized meetings in various European countries, showing anAppleTalk network connected seamlessly with a ring type Token- ring and an Ethernet bus. In Italy, the presentation was made by Novell in Milan, in an atmosphere, gathering only the presence of insiders, and specialized press; while this was going on the company used this opportunity to present Alessandro De Berti, the new head of the entire commercial activity in our market and the future owner of the Italian subsidiary that Novell will open by next year. NetWare for Mac and NetWare 2.15 perform the same function: integrating the AppleTalk architecture, and all protocols, with the Lan of Ms- Dos and Os 2. NetWare for Mac is complementary software for today’s version of NetWare (2.11), but the price of this software is yet to be determined. NetWare 2.15 will be the new operating system that Novell will distribute to all of its users within the’ summer, providing an interface to the Mac as a bonus at no extra cost. Novell is distributed in Italy by FastItalia (Via Flaminia 888, 00191 Rome, tel. 06 3060285; Via Vela 3, 20133 Milan, tel. 02 200611) and O.P.C. (via Oxilia 27, 20127 Milan, tel. 02 2610148) . To maintain a complete transparency for its use in the two worlds,Novell has changed its operating system by adding all the typical file management functions of Macintosh and the network functions offered by the Protocol AFP (AppleTalk Filing Protocol). In this way, the network server equipped with NetWare (either with a 80286 or 80386) can govern both the centralized memorization of information for both networks, and for either the print queues across the two environments. In practice, the server connects through a specific interface card, to the Local Talk network, (AppleTalk over twisted pair wiring) and with other cards to Ms- Dos networks. Any print command, launched from either Dos or from Mac, will be collected by the server and then routed automatically to the selected printer, regardless of the fact that this may be the Dos side or on the Apple side of the network. Therefore, users of both environments may use in a transparent manner both the printers LaserWriter and ImageWriter of Apple, as well as all other peripherals available under MS-DOS.

Roberto Mazzoni