Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linux Growth Doesn't Offset NetWare Decline

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the slippery-stockholder-slope dept.

steveit_is writes to tell us CommentWire is reporting that the decline in NetWare and Open Enterprise sales is plummeting at a much faster rate than their SUSE Linux sales are growing. It seems that the transition is proving to be every bit as difficult as Novell execs originally suspected. From the article: "When Novell last week announced its financial results for the fiscal first quarter ended January 31, the said that growth in its SUSE Linux and related products was decent, but that sales of its NetWare and Open Enterprise Server--a variant of NetWare that uses Linux as the operating system kernel that was announced last year--declined by 11%."

2 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Don't kill the cow 'til the calf is grown by swalker42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Novell has declared it's cash cow dead (Netware) long before the new cash cow (Linux) has replaced it. Now Novell has never explicitly said Netware is dead, just that the direction it will be taking is Linux. That's a lesson it learned from WordPerfect. Announce the end of the only product making money long before the new product has replaced the revenue. Ah well, at least Novell was able to use something from one of the many companies it bought. Too bad it was rotten business sense.

    --
    You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means
  2. Re:Why make the comparison by unladen+swallow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have to agree.

    I got started with networks with Novell Netware 2.12.

    From there I moved to 3.12, 4.11.

    3.12 was rock solid, the only problem was that it was not an application server, it only did file and print (and did it very well). Having PC's/Solaris/MAC/OS2/Mainframes able to access the same files/print jobs was huge.

    During the 2.12 and 3.12 days Microsoft (Win 3.11) was making major inroads with applications which IMO killed Novell. Since Novell did not have a App server to counter it (no one was supporting apps at least on Novell). Novell was left with file and print jobs.

    Installing shared apps on a Novell server could be a major nightmare.

    When NDS came out it was too little too late.

    I see no real reason to migrate to SUSE/Novell at this time

    I have bought the 9.2/9.3 version of SUSE (need to buy 10) just to help support Novell.