The schedule has slipped a bit from the January date originally expected (CI No 2,313), but Novell Inc’s quest to lock horns with Microsoft Corp’s Microsoft at Work in the embedded operating system market is off and running, and will make its first public appearance next month when the company launches developer kits for printers, PC Week reports. Novell will unveil its NEST Novell Embedded Systems Technology architecture and announce the first of its embedded-systems partners, the trade weekly hears. The architecture extends Novell’s NetWare services to embedded operating systems in devices that could range from printers and process control systems to refrigerators and television sets.The development, which builds on the FlexOS executive Novell acquired with Digital Research Inc, is being handled by the company’s Extended Networks Group, and rather than confine itself to FlexOS, it intends to make NetWare services portable to any embedded operating system. Novell told the paper that it is also working with third-party developers that plan to run Microsoft At Work on top of the Novell Embedded Systems Technology system. First products from Novell will be developer kits for im plementing IPX/SPX, PServer and Remote Printer proto cols on microprocessor- based printer controllers.
