Novell NetWare customers can get discounts of up to US$15,000 on partner-provided migration services under a new incentive program from Microsoft. The program benefits customers and service providers moving from the NetWare server OS to Windows Server 2003. Microsoft and its partners hope to pick up NetWare users that don't follow Novell as it increases its focus on Linux.

The most notable feature of the program is a voucher for partner-provided migration services. The voucher provides US$600 in discounts per Windows Server 2003 server license or Client Access License (CAL) purchased for target systems, up to the US$15,000 maximum. This feature is aimed mainly at midmarket companies, for whom this sum might make a difference.

The program also offers a US$349 discount on online training for NetWare migration to the first 1,800 customers, with no purchase necessary. A free newsgroup, monitored by Microsoft Support personnel, has been created to support Windows Server 2003 migration including NetWare migration. Microsoft partner Quest Software is offering discounts of up to 20% on its Novell Directory Services Migrator product for customers moving to Active Directory, and Microsoft is distributing a 30-day trial version of the Quest product.

NetWare migration technology and incentives are explained at www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/migrate/novell/default.mspx

Novell's Linux strategy and Microsoft's feature pack for NetWare migration are summarized in "New Services for NetWare Feature Pack" on page 20 of the July 2004 Update.

Legal claims by Novell, including its recent antitrust settlement and new antitrust suit, are discussed in "Novell, CCIA Highlight Legal News".