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Novell Missteps Not Affecting SuSE
OSS_ilation writes "Analysts and users agree -- if the layoff rumors at Novell prove true sometime soon, SuSE Linux has nothing to fear. Over at SearchOpenSource.com the word is that the popular SuSE Linux operating system has both the community support and technical chops to weather any personnel-related storms that may be lingering on the horizon. However, the point is also made that should Novell go south, there are those who believe SuSE could prove to be an appealing acquisition target."
I hear they're going to merge with Mandriva to form a new company, Mansuseriva, which their marketers say is just about the hippest name around.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Novell's got a billion bucks. Really. Even if they take a huge onetime charge to fire everyone they have left in Utah, they won't be dead for years.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Good to see that there is someone there to feed that chameleon.
Its better than their current name. Mandriva sounds like a gay porno.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
A much more plausible option for Novell is to factor out redundancy in their products in favor of their OSS. And to convert more of their products into OSS, either by publishing the source, or by phasing them out in favor of supporting, maybe even buying, their OSS competition. If the market thinks their OSS divisions are worth buying, it will think Novell is even better suited to keep them, if its overall strategy is consistent (and they market that strategy correctly). Novell made its empire making DOS network, almost lost it to NT's "network OS" PR, kept it by making Win32 network to old Novell standards, and generally is known for making others OSes interoperate. Novell should see the light and make the jump. They could ride the Linux tide to do what MS did with PC desktop/LANs, without that nasty (and cyclic) vendor lockin.
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make install -not war
...but that just makes them an acquisition target. I'm still not sure that Novell's shareholders won't get together and fire the board (Jack Messman and all) before an acquiring vehicle (and it could be a VC-led consortium) does it anyway.
It takes real genius to fail to meet the market in the way Novell has, but Novell has so many failed strategies, failed relaunches, failed products that never quite delivered, that it amounts to a sort of genius.
It has too many consultants, but more importantly far too many managerial layers to ever be nimble. Novell corporately is sclerotic, and its upper management is utterly remote from the cutting edge.
SuSE wasn't making money before the acquisition, and SuSE Linux needs more corporate sponsors.
Perhaps Google should buy SuSE Linux - I'm sure Eric Schmidt would like the irony.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Outside Usa...
Also, and more importantly, those clients are used to pay. So, the SuSe offering of novell, with the tools used by novell admins, is cheaper, then they will maintain, and grouth their market share.
Also, Microsof pricing as a Network Operating System, is way more expensive than Novell offerings, and for example, a iDirectory with Identity Manager, are good solutions, and their OpenSource counterpart, needs a LOT of time to implement it correctly, lot of hack and slash, and Novell provides clients from windows/linux/mac...
So, big & medium size co, searching for a cheaper infrastructure, and wanting to still have somebody to sue, and have WorldWide support, then Novell SuSe is the way to go...
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Hate to say it, but the notion that troubles at Novell won't affect SUSE is complete bullshit. They need enterprise sales. The enterprise generally doesn't invest in troubled companies that might have gone down the tubes one year into a five-year support package. And that's excluding any impact on Novell Linux if a new strategy vaporizes their R&D budgets. Any long-term cloud over Novell is going to be a killer for SUSE. In Linux terms, it would be a case of no one ever went broke buying Red Hat.
That wouldn't be attractive for many companies. I mean, why change from Windows to Linux when the only credible Linux game in town is Red Hat and they want to be just like Microsoft anyway. This sounds much more like analysts talking up SUSE because they know full well that if it comes to a showdown at Novell, the Linux part is the one that will sell for decent money, if they can keep it untarnished.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Exactly how did we go from layoffs to folding?
It doesn't take much research to discover that Novell grew their business in the early 90s to the mid 90s from less then $500 million to over $2 billion. And when they hit their peak in the mid 90s they had over 7000 employees. In the late 90s Novell's business was cut in half to about $1 billion and they have held there for some time. Currently the number of employees is at 6000+ and their costs to run their business just about overwhelm their revenue. Which begs the question, does this billion dollar company have more people than are necessary to run the business? I know what the numbers say, but I'll let everyone figure it out for themselves.
The point to keep from all this, while Novell has not done a good of keeping costs under control they have done a good job of keeping their revenues up since Microsoft sucked away soo much of their business. So it is not likely Novell will be folding anytime soon and if anything they will become a leaner and more profitable company which currently has an excellent business plan point directly at the burgeoning open source market.
burnin
Zenworks is such a killer product that alone should be reason enough to stay or switch back to Novell. With Zenworks we are able to manage over 2500 computers with two that's right two administrators.
I've run novell netware servers for 9 years, and literaly NEVER had it crash. And after power outages, its never failed to come right back up online. Its the only OS i have ever run that have never given me Guru Meditation/kernel panic / BSOD / filesystem corruption. (and the opposite is just as true Stable company != Stable OS... just think of Windows)
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This isn't FUD. Novell has been underperforming for years now. Its investors have been clamoring for massive layoffs and a major revampment. They wany Novell to sell off every thing that isn't profitable, and unless SuSE starts brining in a lot more cash, they *will* sell off that division. This isn't hard to believe either, look at Novell's history... they've always just moved from one tech to the other as each of their attempts failed. They are running out of the piles of cash aquired in the mid to late 90s and all the major investors are getting peeved.
Novell's management is one of the most disfunctional units in any major corporation, its great that they bought SuSE and all, except that they haven't done anything with the product since they've bought it. Sure they hired Nat, and he's done some cool things, but when it comes down to it, Novell is still testing the waters with Linux and right now its not looking too good for them. Don't be surprised if they sell off that unit. Last quarter they only earned 2 million dollars, and now they are spending 200 million to buyback stock and bump up their stock prices so investors are a little happier.
Investors have also already pushed Novell to sell off its consulting unit. Now they are also laying off at a minimum of 120 people in Europe. Most investment firms predict Novell will continue to underperform for sometime. Novell bought SuSE because it was on the market to be purchased and it was fairly cheap, Red Hat was offered the chance to buy SuSE first but they declined. Red Hat, unlike Novell, is riddled with major OSS advocates from the top down (i.e. the guy who wrote the first gnu c++ compiler is their VP of OSS affairs) and they believe in healthy competition, especially since with OSS everyone benefits from eachother's work, also it would have made them look bad as being a monopoly on the market. Novell saw a cheap way to test if Linux was profitable and its turning out to not be the golden goose that they needed. Novell is literally just a big mess and its been that way for over half a decade. They *can't* keep at this pace for another year or two.
Regards,
Steve
Mono is not innovative. Mono is just a misguided open source implementation of proprietary crap.
Hula (another Novell incubator project) is innovative. Hula implements integrated open standards based calendaring, scheduling, email etc. Hula doesn't copy MS API's; Hula, should it succeed, could overshadow Exchange in the collaboration software arena. To date, Exchange has had no real competition. But imagine what standards based collaboration would mean. It would be analogous to HTTP/HTML on the web, or SMTP/IMAP for email. Exchange lets you collaborate with other people in using the same Exchange server. Open standards for collaboration could allow you keep in sync with stuff going on all over the damn place. Keep in sync with your family, friends, work, community, business relationships, your kid's school, whatever. Think about it.
Bury Exchange. Long live (the bright lights at) Novell.