Novell's Race Against Time

DiamondGeezer writes "The Guardian newspaper in the UK reports in 'It's a race against time' that Novell is on a knife-edge financially and competitively, having placed a huge one-way bet in the success of its Linux strategy. But there's no guarantee of success: its revenue from Linux licensing is puny, and it faces a crowded market of Linux distros. Novell may be getting some positive press now that it's gone full tilt for Linux, but let's remember the reasons why: because of mis-steps of its previous management (especially the disastrous acquisition of WordPerfect in the mid 1990s) and its failure to grow its Netware business (with more than a little help from Microsoft), it's now having to re-engineer itself for Linux."

Comments

Sad but true.

[caryw]

How does Novell expect to remain competitive in the world of free linux. Especially with RedHat dominating the paid business sector.
They were one of the pioneers of many technologies available today. It will be sad to watch their slow painful death.
--
NoVA Underground: Where Northern Virginia comes out to play

Re:Sad but true.

[Ars-Fartsica]

RedHat dominates (in North America) the server business sector. SUSE (Novell) is more popular in the desktop sector.

I don't think this is true at all and I am wondering how you arrived at this.

Re:Sad but true.

[ploss]

Not just sad - it will set a very dangerous precedent for all Linux corporate offerings in the future!
Think - Novell, one of the largest networking software companies, having the final nail in the coffin being hammered in by choosing Linux.

How would that statement sound in the mind of a PHB? "Linux = doomed software companies" is a particularly nasty association when making a platform decision (even though going with Linux was probably the right solution, rather than continuing with NetWare.)

I don't know if they can pull out of the slump, but we should support Novell any way we can, as it stands as one of the largest allies Linux (and the OSS community) has today. To see Novell's downfall will definitely weaken Linux's corporate desktop offering.

Re:Sad but true.

[einhverfr]

There are really four or five major production linux distros out there: RedHat (and Fedora), SuSE (and Novell), Mandrake, Debian, and maybe either Slackware or Gentoo. Most other distros are fairly small, niche distros which lack general appeal outside their niche markets. When Novell bought SuSE they knew what they saw.

But more than that, they have shown that they understand the industry. They have consistantly backed open source software, and even open sourced previously closed apps like OpenXchange, and the Exchange connector for evolution. They have shown commitment to the vision of a future dominated by Free/Open Source software, and they have consistantly been to bat for us. It may be some time before all proprietary apps are open sourced, including ZenWorks and eDirectory.

Novell does not have an easy road ahead of them but it is far better than any other choice they have. I give them a 70% chance of staying profitable, and a 40% chance of actually taking on the market leadership role. This may seem like a long shot, but Novell is where they are is largely a result of fundamental economic shifts of the industry rather than a set of specific management mistakes-- i.e. if you are in the right economic position (Microsoft), you can survive many serious mistakes, but if you are not, these mistakes take a more serious toll.

Last post!!

[isny]

Last post before the dreaded Slashdot April Fools articles are submitted.

Requisite Suse Rules post

[miyako]

Novell may be facing competition with a lot of other distributions, but I have to say that I don't see Suse fading anytime soon. In fact, in my experience, Suse has been getting more popular as of late. It certainly seems like the most well refined distribution I've used lately. Redhat seems to have left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of Linux users, and I've never heard of anyone using Mandrake on a server, which really leaves Suse as the last of the major distributions with commercial backing (I know there are other commercial Linux distributions, but when I think of commercial Linux distributions, I always think of the big 3 as Suse, Redhat and Mandrake).
YaST is probably one of the best system tools I've used on any Linux distribution, and hopefully we will see some really great things once we see some (forgive the buzz word) synergy between Suse and Ximian.

Correct me if I'm wrong but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't recall hearing that Novell ever intended to make a lot of money by selling a Linux distro. On the other hand, converting their existing products to Linux will save them a bundle compared to developing a completely independent solution. Most of what their stuff does is the same as what Linux does. They can concentrate on the things that make them different to add value.

No

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Cashflow is often used as a weapon in inter-corporate wars. If Microsoft identifies Novell as a threat (I'm sure they have), they need only give away Microsoft products/service to their customers for a while - like they have already - until Novell runs out of money. They don't need to even do this for too long (though they have the money to) since once Novell gets past a certain debt level, the FUD of "Novell is dying... give us your biz" will kick in.

I, for one, hope Novell makes a go of it, but the world is unfortunately a harsh place.

Re:No

[SunFan]

If Microsoft identifies Novell as a threat (I'm sure they have), they need only give away Microsoft products/service to their customers for a while - like they have already - until Novell runs out of money.

It goes all ways. I'm sure Sun's price cuts were in response to Red Hat and Novell, but it also is a nice stiff jab at Microsoft, too. This is ultimately a good thing for everyone, as we are seeing competition drive prices down.

Has anyone noticed that Microsoft is now the highest priced vendor? Ironic that UNIX was the high vendor not even a decade ago.

I think in the long-term, the companies with hardware and services wings (e.g., Sun and IBM) will probably fare the best. Microsoft is pretty much software-only, which is an industry becoming more price competitive than Wal-Mart.

Re:What Novell should do. and...

[davidsyes]

Maybe Novell should also license from IBM all it can from Lotus SmartSuite, then merge the best of WP, Paradox, (if it still has any rights to WP & Pdx) into SmartSuite and then release the package to compete with OpenOffiice.org.

I am STILL not pleased with the document insert "feature" which, when I insert a document, it goes into a "band", invisibly. When I link to another document and then want to edit from beginning to end, I damn well should be able to SEEEEEEE those linked documents.

Lotus WordPro has done this RIGHT for years. 1.9.79 still makes me go, "sigh.... maybe NEXT version SO/OO.o will pull their heads out and actually BUY a copy of Lotus SmartSuite and start simplyfiying and mimicking stuff that works, instead of coming up with gee-whizz stuff that piles on to the list of features that have to be debugged, making it too resource intensive (on the devs AND the desktop) to be economical to go back and fix those useful features.

I also think Novell could pull a rabbit or two by adjusting the document interface so that a user in a spreadsheet can put the tabs wherever they want, not just get force-fed bottom tabs only or top tabs only. (Actually, I thought GroupWise offered that, or maybe it was QuattroPro...)

If IBM and Novell had some limited thing going on, Lotus SmartSuite could be diffused (not DEfused, mind you) across more Linux/Open Source environments.

I am not at all about "killing off" the various suites that OpenSource devs are making, but christ-o-matic, take a LOOK at what SmartSuite has, and gingerly, without ticking IBM off too terribly, clone some of those features, especially if IBM is not going to get its Lotus camp on the band wagon.

NOVELL, are you leesteneeng? Please, PLEASE, license from IBM/Lotus the Lotus and then uppgrade the Approach database interface, the Lotus WordPro document interface, and the Lotus 1-2-3 interface. They're crisp, tight, concise, colorful, not drab/gray.

At least Lotus isn't busy chomping away and cloning the heck out of ms' orifice. (Actually between Lotus and SourceNext ("Lotus SuperOffce developers/distributors in Japan/Asia...), I wonder what will be the next offerings to Lotus SmartSuite.)

David Syes

Re:What Novell should do.

[GeorgeMcBay]

What Novell really needs to do is merge unique features from Netware into Linux, and license much of Apple's proprietary code at any price.


Wow, sounds like a good idea. I'm sure Steve Jobs and Apple would jump at the chance to undercut their own market by allowing Novell to make a low cost Mac alternative!

Re:Questions on viability of NLD

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Novell deserving of the support that the Open Source Software (OSS) community can provide to increase the odds of success regarding its Linux push?

This may be like the opposite of "guilt by association", but here goes:
We fans of Linux like IBM these days because they support it extensively and have given it corporate legitimacy. IBM favors 2 distros in particular: Red Hat and SuSE. They both get pretty even support with IBM's servers and software (WebSphere, DB2, Tivoli, Lotus, etc).

In addition, when Novell acquired SuSE IBM invested $50 million in Novell as a show of good faith.

So I think the folks in Utah (not SCO! :) deserve our encouragement if we're in a position to recommend SuSE for various projects that require a well-supported enterprise-grade Linux distro.

Re:OpenOffice

[0racle]

I would argue that Sun has done more work then any other organization with regards to OpenOffice, it doesn't seem to have translated into a large amount of cash. On the other hand, Novell does have a history of some great network management products, the Directory services spring to mind and I personally have never heard anything bad about ZenWorks. Red Hat would have nothing comparable if Novell were to whip them out and make them what I remember of them. I always liked the NDS.

tried suse enterprise, didnt cut it.. heres why..

[Mark19960]

I had a lot of problems just getting it installed.

perhaps its just because im not the type to use the 'gui' approach to things, not that its a bad thing.

it either didnt have drivers for hardware that we needed to function, or had quirks with those drivers, or needed special treatment.

HOWEVER, that being said i installed it on a plain machine... and the installation was flawless.

I dont like yast, it was good for getting things to work, but I ended up in a console with a text editor editing configs anyhow.
the cups and samba portions in yast are just completely barebones.
the built-in kde conguration tool is far more powerful with regards to samba configuration than yast is.

I dont hate suse, it just didnt fit our needs, and upgrades failed way too easily. these machines we need, they are critical. I could not have a machine fail after an upgrade. after several of these failed upgrades i said enough is enough and switched the suse machines out with gentoo machines.

so, that why I switched it out.
it needs some more polishing, but granted some of my own personal preferences were trampled by it and thats part of it, for sure.

I will try it again in the future, I keep my eyes on most ditros, except for micro$oft linux. (redhat)
but between debian and gentoo and upgrading, I think its a tie. both do it very well, and with very little pain.
suse left me hanging more than once with a trashed system. either it didnt boot or it was really b0rked.

I say, give it a shot. it works fine as long as you dont have like bleeding edge hardware.
(like some sata controllers, ect)

Novell Apologists Unite

[dmh20002]

All the comments on how Netware was so great make me laff. Read "In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters"
by Merrill R. Chapman, to get a good feel for why Netware went by the wayside. Its wasn't the 'suits' that killed them, it was the engineers. They had a bunch of egotisical engineers who refused to build what the market wanted. Yes, it is/was a fast stable file server. But thats about it. You couldn't really run apps on it. And when the clients of the world are all running Windows, and Netware is expensive and difficult to use with Windows, there you go.

Re:Disastrous acquisition of WordPerfect?

[cgenman]

When I think of Disaster, Linux, and WordPerfect, I think of their attempt to port the entire suite to Java. Attempting to capitalize on "write once, run anywhere," and wholeheartedly ignoring the reality of such systems, it ran in a JVM in a browser window. Unfortunately, the computers trying to run the thing couldn't ignore reality, and as such loading a heavily stripped down version of WP took several minutes. It also couldn't take advatage of OS API's, and had to reinvent the wheel many times. I've spoken to a coder from that project, who says it was basically a hell that they knew management wasn't going to let them out of until one or both of them were dead. As Corel laid the lot of them off, it would appear it was both.

You can still try out their beta if you would like, though ironically for a "write once run anywhere" suite you'll be hard pressed to find a browser old enough to run it.

The subsequent version of WP was recoded in C and C++.

Re: cashflow & Market share

[galdur]

Agreed.

Being Novell they have street cred. Netware gives them a wedge into big businesses which no other Linux distro has. And I think they know and understand the businesses' needs better than any of the others, and have the tools to complement Linux to cater to those companies (Zen, identy management and such).

I think Novell and SUSE make a good fit. SUSE now has a desktop platform which they can work WITH, and not AGAINST.

They're clearly aware of it, and their CC EAL4+ certification was part of their plan, a certification which I think only SUSE still holds (among the Linux distros).

What the article could have mentioned is that Novell is proving to their customer that they can do without Windows, migrating internally to Linux desktops (see Joe Barr's http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/03/23/1 755222). Here's another interesting link http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;16020781 22;fp;16;fpid;0