July saw Networks ’99 take centre stage at the Birmingham NEC. With over 400 exhibitors and almost 19,000 visitors the show was an opportunity for the public to try a range of Novell solutions

It was another busy exhibition for Novell this year with the Novell stand heaving with customers throughout the 3 days of the show. The stand featured two theatres presenting on Novell products and strategy throughout the day. Seven partners joined Novell on their stand at the show, each specialising in a specific Novell product area. There were two feature areas on the stand: the Innovations Showcase, supported by Novell reseller Centralis, and the Public Sector Showcase, supported by Novell reseller BEI Metastorm.

Tim Carter, of BEI Metastorm, commented, "Being heavily involved in the Public Sector, we found that having a dedicated area of the Novell stand was very useful for both the visitors and ourselves. We were kept extremely busy with interest from Novell's visitors in NDS, ZENworks, Document Management and Workflow."

The Public Sector showcase focused on Education on the first day of the show -- with Greg Drew from the University of Highlands and Islands (UHI) speaking on how they have implemented Novell software within the University's network, with assistance from SUNS software - the Novell reseller at The University of Salford, which hosted Novell's Brainshare UK event in July.

At CMP's Networking Industry Awards Dinner on the first evening of the show, Novell NDS for NT won the award for Networking Software Product of the Year, with the University of Highlands and Islands (UKI), winning the award for Network Project of the Year. An excellent evening for Novell!

Tim Snook, IT Manager for OFTEL presented for Central Government at the Novell showcase presentation on day 2 of the show. Novell co-sponsored the Web-Enabled Test Drive with Compaq and Citrix, attracting much interest and boasting a full house at each presentation. The Test Drive demonstrated how, regardless of which machine the participant was sat at, whether Macintosh, DOS, Windows NT, etc., each desktop looked exactly the same. So if a user logs off from their PC at work and goes home to carry on working on a Macintosh, when they log in, their desktop can look exactly the same.

The Novell Messaging centre featured another new Novell product, the Novell Internet Messaging System (NIMS). This allowed visitors, via the web, to set up their own personal email account while at the show giving them the ability to send and receive emails. Novell reseller, Systems Group, supported Novell in this area and responded to the many Novell enquiries.

Dave Ball of Computer Associates, commented: "Networks telecom has clearly established itself as 'the' networking trade show. This year's show did not disappoint -- we were impressed, as always, with quality and quantity of enquiries and have already booked up for next year".

John Birbeck, Sales & Marketing Director at Network Alchemy (now part of Lucent): "This was a superb show for Lucent -- we found the quality and quantity of visitors exceeded our expectations and previous years' experience. Networks telecom appears to have captured the heart of this convergence market."

The final comment comes from Wendy Berry, Novell's UK Marketing Manager, "Networks telecom was an ideal opportunity for customers to see a number of Novell's key products and solutions in action. Customers were able to see key software demonstrations and presentations, test drive the latest products as well as talk to Novell's partners about implementing Novell solutions in their specific environments."