Novell Corp has missed the date for the first beta release of Cobra, the code-name for the next release of its NetWare operating system, and the software will not now be released until the end of the month, a spokesperson has confirmed.
Novell had said that beta one of Cobra was due to ship in June but delays in integrating a number of third party products with the OS have pushed back the release date until the end of July. Even then, the software will only go out as a closed beta to one company, but the spokesperson said the full beta should begin sometime soon after that. Unlike current version of NetWare, Cobra comes integrated with third party products including IBM Corp’s Websphere application server development tool, Netscape Communication Inc’s Enterprise Server web server and a five-user license of Oracle Corp’s 8i database.
The spokesperson said the companies weren’t experiencing problems integrating the technologies, just that it was taking longer to achieve than anticipated. The idea of having a database, web application server, directory and management tools all rolled into one sounds very similar to what Informix Corp announced this week, with its Foundation.2000 platform and is indicative of the way the market in general is heading.
