When Novell acquired Managed Objects back in October 2008, I speculated that Novell would eventually promote the software to managed service providers. Fast forward to the present, and Verizon Business now uses Novell Managed Objects (rebranded as Business Service Management) to gather and share service level agreement (SLA) data with customers.

To be clear, Novell has not entered the MSP market nor is the company aggressively positioning Business Service Management to MSPs. Instead, Novell’s BSM software primarily serves internal IT departments that are trying to monitor their SLAs and mitigate risk with internal customers.

But Verizon Business is an acception to that rule. During an April 7 seminar in New York, Novell described how Verizon Business has launched an SLA portal for external customers. The portal, built on Novell BSM software, allows customers to check a range of SLA data points. Novell disclosed the Verizon Business deployment as part of case study session.

Generall speaking, I don’t hear much about Novell in the MSP market. But I think BSM software could emerge as a niche solution for larger MSPs that need to manage SLAs.

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