More Upbeat Press Novell Embraces New CEO (3/24/97; 7:00 p.m. EST)
By Stuart Glascock,
Computer Reseller News
Novell's newly apointed Chief Executive Eric Schmidt made his debut at the company's annual Brainshare conference today.
Schmidt, wearing a Java Beans polo shirt, appeared at the opening ceremonies, assuring the Novell faithful that he will steer Novell more and more toward enterprise computing, Java and heterogeneous Internet products.
"This is a new Novell," Schmidt said. "In a year, Novell will be the No. 1 leader on intranets."
Schmidt said: "Novell is banking on Java--banking that ISVs will develop on top of Java. The new network services side of new growth is perfectly suited for Novell. We sold 25 million servers last quarter and have 60 million users. The problem is that nobody knows that. I'm going to change," he said to the first of several rounds of applause.
"With Eric, Novell couldn't have a better visionary on board," noted Joe Marengi, acting president for Novell. This, he added, "is a new company, with new blood and a new vision to rock the Net."
Speaking before a crowd of 5,000 at the company's 13th annual Brainshare conference here, Marengi said: "We will become integrator of the companies that enable the connected enterprise."
Marengi said a spate of announcements prove that this is a new Novell. Last week, after stunning the industry with the Schmidt announcement, Novell also announced plans to launch with Netscape Communications Novonyx, a joint venture dedicated to putting Netscape's SuiteSpot onto Novell's IntranetWare platform and other integration work.
The "new company," Marengi stressed, is starting with a base of 60 million customers and $1.1 billion in cash, 200,000 Certified NetWare Engineers and a growing international revenue base that generates 49 percent of the company's revenue from outside the United States.
"These are not signs of a dead company," Marengi said.
Separately, Novell and Sun Microsystems officials announced a new collaboration called "Project Studio Java, which will be integrated into future versions of IntranetWare, Novell's Internet access platform. Project Studio's visual development environment will use Java Bean components that allow programmers to create programs from the building blocks of programs called beans.
Schmidt also called GroupWise, the company's popular messaging product, "the best-kept secret in the industry."
"I believe there are tremendous underappreciated assets at Novell that are unknown to the rest of the world," he said. "I'm here to change that."
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I think CEO Schmidt comments are quite relevent. Like...
(1) "... This is a new Novell..."; "In a year, Novell will be the No. 1 leader on intranets"
(2) "... (Groupwise) the best-kept secret in the industry..."
(3) "... I believe there are tremendous underappreciated assets at Novell that are unknown to the rest of the world..."
(4) "I'm here to change that"!!!
AND Marangie needs to keep a low profile and his mouth shut.
EKS
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