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Novell Under Pressure From Investors
UltimaGuy writes "The pressure is growing on Novell Inc's management to make major strategic changes after a regulatory filing revealed a Novell shareholder has joined Credit Suisse First Boston in calling for change at the identity management and Linux vendor. The steps proposed by the investment firm include cutting costs by targeting Novell's two corporate jets, its 'overstaffed' R&D department, legacy products, and its 400 NetWare engineers, as well as selling non-core businesses to enable funds to be redeployed."
Maybe there's truth in the notion then that Sun might buy Novell. If it doesn't buy Red Hat first, as Mark Hinkle here seems to think it might.
targeting Novell's two corporate jets, its "overstaffed" R&D department
I wonder by cutting its overstaffed R&D department if they really just mean move them all to China?
I guess the execs will need those corporate jets to fly back and forth to China in style so they can visit their lower-paid works occasionally.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Novell is still in a changing state in finding itself again. Microsoft's taking over the server market has left Novell perpetually staggering. While Novell still has a server stake and their stake is being re-situated on a Linux base, they need to apply all they can on R&D in order to get themselves wedged into the desktop market. For shops that are already Novell, adopting a strong and maintainable desktop environment based on Linux would be less difficult that convincing an all-Microsoft shop. They have a foot in the door but they need to apply a lot more R&D to make another step.
These damned short-sighted share-holders, while on the short term build captial and value in a company, seem to be the long-term downfall of creativity and improvement. (Not to mention the driving influence in removing ethics from business practices to the point of criminal acts.)
Just yesterday I was cycling through the KVM on a rack of machines in a server room, and one of the boxes, apparently untouched for over 3 three years, had puked just that morning (on a RAM hiccup, or something similar), and did the old Novell equivalent of a BSD. The funny thing (other than the timing) was that no one with any interest in the infrastructure could come up with the slightest idea what that machine was actually supposed to be doing. Right now the plan is to leave it off until some dev guy screams (or, payroll doesn't go through, or another equally dramatic land-mine type event).
But the point is, that machine would appear to have gone from Important To Somebody Who Really Liked Novell to, well, Complete Obscurity in a pretty short time. Not entirely representative of Novell's current corporate state of affairs, but in retrospect, the whole thing was sort of poetic. Plus, the users in question are now about to pay for an audit of what the hell actually is running in their server room.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
""We are disappointed in not only your failure to consider our proposals but also at the clear lack of urgency in implementing a strategic plan,""
Gee maybe if they weren't busy trying to defend their business in frivolous lawsuits like sco then maybe they could concentrate and spend money on their actual business.
Sounds like to me just a blowhard that either sco or microsoft or sun got a hold of to distract the company from the issues at hand.
I fully support Novell in what they are they doing. Just because their busines model doesn't meet the standards of a convicted monopolist doesn't mean a thing. I got some of the longest uptimes on my servers from SUSE linux. To me that is what makes a business model. Fricken reliability - what a concept.
Their NDS still rocks and runs on any platform. It blows Microsoft AD crap away.
I am still waiting on sco's response to novell which I believe should be coming up real soon.
I think Novell is in a hard spot wrt Netware. I admin about 50 Netware servers. *I* know that I can do everything I need on Open Enterprise Server. There is no technical reason to carry on with Netware, but convincing my higher-ups that Linux is no longer "just some hippie hobby thing" takes time.
I'm afraid that if Novell were to discontinue support for Netware today, my management might decide it would be just as easy to migrate to Windows as to OES.
Novell has to keep Netware support rolling along, while at the same time convincing PHBs (like mine) that Linux is perfectly acceptable for large scale mission critical deployments. Dropping a significant number of Netware engineers could cause Novell to lose customers if they are not very careful.
Jack Messman was CEO at the old Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP) before it merged with Novell. Somehow, he became CEO at Novell and has held the position for 5'ish years.
During his time on the board at CTP, then as its CEO and now as CEO at Novell, company value and performance has gone down. Way down.
I'm doubt his pay has. Though, his stock options must be underwater.
Somehow he weathers these storms as he drives these companies into the ground.
His previous experience was with Union Pacific Railroad, which seems quite different from these here technology companies. If he's in charge of a company then I'd short it. http://www.novell.com/company/bios/jmessman.html
Why the hell would they want to sell Zenworks? That's probably still the best mass software deployment engine out there and it has been for over 6 years. Likewise Groupwise is another product that has a huge base and cements a Novell presence in the workplace.
I'm all for doing more for Linux, etc. But Novell would be stupid to give up a couple of their secondary jewels. (The prime jewel being NDS of course...)
Acquiescence leads to obliteration
Novell has positioned itself to deliver a complete solution from the desktop to the server.
If they finalize the Novell Linux Client AND make it run on most dists there are many companies who could switch to OES on the back and Linux at most of the desktops in a heartbeat. I assume there are a bunch of people like me out there who want OES but also want a linux client. Ncpfs doesnt quite cut it, neither do pam_ldap.
I really hope they get their thumbs out, to much waiting and many customers will move to other solutions.
HTTP/1.1 400
...and how many startups have you successfully launched: visionary?
Now, at my previous startup there was a guy doing the "CEO thing" while the founder and "visionary" just kind of supervised everything. The CEO type was an ex-VP from IBM. Your attitude towards VC's would probably send him to the floor giggling hysterically.
He would always tell us that you always have to count your fingers and toes when after dealing with VC's. You can't just jump at them like they're offering free money. There's usually a very nasty catch.
IOW, you have to be sure to remain in control. It may be better to turn them away.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This is being argued in a few of my classes as the primary weakness of capitalism. Is there anyone anywhere addressing this in a manner that could bear fruit? R&D has become just D, and the D needs to "bear immediate, marketable fruit." Hence, Toyota's 10 years developing hybrid cars vs. GM's...what? I'm not trolling, I really would like to see suggestions. The US won't ever (I don't think) adopt japan's state directed industry model ("government intervention = market inefficency"). Nor does the european mixed socialist model sit well (despite increased standards of living.) What then is the answer? A strong military and IP laws that "grant" us a slice of all worldwide production? No, but really...