Novell Positioned in the Leaders Quadrant for Web Access Management

WALTHAM, Mass.—19 Oct 2006—Novell today announced it has been positioned in the leaders quadrant of Gartner, Inc.’s, "Magic Quadrant for Web Access Management, 1H06" report.1 Gartner evaluates vendors based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute. Novell continues to advance its secure access capabilities with the recent release of Novell® Access Manager 3, a comprehensive Web access management solution. Novell Access Manager provides simple, secure access for customers, partners and employees to ensure user productivity, streamline user administration and increase security.

“We believe Gartner’s recognition of Novell’s success in the Web access management market is underscored by the tremendous early interest we’ve seen for Novell Access Manager,” said Jeff Jaffe, executive vice president and chief technology officer for Novell. “A key product within our award-winning portfolio of security and identity management solutions, Novell Access Manager helps companies save time and money by simplifying access to, and enhancing the security of, information and services across the extended enterprise.”

Novell Access Manager addresses the key issue of access in the extended enterprise – the broad ecosystem of partners, customers and employees companies connect with on a daily basis. Novell Access Manager provides Web single sign-on and numerous other advanced capabilities, including standards-based identity federation, multi-factor authentication, data encryption, and an SSL VPN for local and remote users. Novell Access Manager also includes native support for a broad range of platforms and directory services to provide a single, centralized secure access management solution for the enterprise.

In referring to the Leaders Quadrant of the report, Gartner wrote, "Acquisition integration has progressed, larger platform vendors have exploited their advantage in leveraging their own customer bases, and the lack of differentiation so glaringly illustrated in the leaderless Magic Quadrant in 2005 has ended. Vendors have found several different ways to establish leadership, including bundling identity federation and Web services IAM (Identity and Access Management) capabilities. Visionary companies in WAM (Web Access Management) also are looking into integration with network access control products. Fine-grained and non-Web authorization support is also a major focus, although currently few enterprises have deployed these functionalities. Gartner has, however, noted increased discussion of the possibility of a centralized authorization policy repository to be used by all applications — which WAM products are well-positioned to provide.”

The positioning of vendors in Gartner’s Web Access Management Magic Quadrant is based on several criteria designed to measure strengths in both business and technical capabilities. Vendors are positioned in either the Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries or Niche Players quadrant. Gartner defines Leaders as those who are performing well today, have a clear vision of market directions and are actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market.

Novell Access Manager is a flagship product within Novell’s award-winning identity and security management product line. It provides the Web access management complement to Novell Identity Manager and the company’s market-leading security information and event management solution, SentinelTM from Novell. More information on Novell’s solutions for security and identity can be found at http://www.novell.com/solutions/securityandidentity.
About the Magic Quadrant

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted October 2006 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers Software for the Open Enterprise™. With more than 50,000 customers in 43 countries, Novell helps customers manage, simplify, secure and integrate their technology environments by leveraging best-of-breed, open standards-based software. With over 20 years of experience, 4,700 employees, 5,000 partners and support centers around the world, Novell helps customers gain control over their IT operating environment while reducing cost. More information about Novell can be found at http://www.novell.com.

1"Magic Quadrant for Web Access Management, 2H06" Ray Wagner, 13 October 2006.

Novell is a registered trademark and Sentinel and Software for the Open Enterprise are trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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