Executive aims to put Novell in a faster lane
Last updated 03/25/1997, 10:47 a.m. MST
By Brooke Adams
Deseret News staff writer
Denice Y. Gibson occupies one of the hot seats at Novell Inc.
As senior vice president of the Internet Products Group, she must overcome one
of Novell's most critical flaws: slowness in getting products out the door.
Gibson, 41, is a wiry bundle of energy and seems perfectly suited to the task.
She joined Novell last May, one of a group of fortysomething technology turks new
to the company.
She initially served as general manager of the Distributed Networks Business
Unit and took over the Internet Products group in October. Gibson is one of two
women on Novell's executive board.
She came to the company from Tandem Computers, where she was vice
president of developer services and general manager of value added services.
Gibson worked previously at Candle Corporation and Amdahl Corporation. She
holds degrees from the University of San Francisco, Stanford and Pepperdine.
At Novell, she oversees several key Novell projects: GroupWise, LAN
Workplace, Telephony, Electronic Commerce, IntranetWare, Java projects and
cross-platform services. Gibson talked about Novell's focus and partnership
announcements with the Deseret News Monday afternoon:
Deseret News: Novell announced partnership deals with Oracle and Sun
Microsystems Monday. What is the broad overall goal of these agreements?
Gibson: We're taking Novell and furthering all our services in order to compete
effectively in the networking environment. In the past, computer companies stood
alone, but as Microsoft got powerful, companies realized they have to partner
together.
The partnerships stop redundant development by taking pieces of each company
that can compete in All-But-Microsoft deals. But also important is interoperability.
You can't work together unless you share technology.
Deseret News: Why did Novell choose to join Netscape in creating a private
company (Novonyx) rather than form a partnership to develop products
in-house?
Gibson:Our perspective is that if you look at a lot of companies that are doing
mergers and acquisitions, they are never smooth. If we do this in a stand-alone
company, we get the best of both companies without the clash of corporate
cultures. It's also off the balance sheet, which means that if each company invests
less than 20 percent it doesn't have to be reported on their bottom lines.
Deseret News: Novell made several partnership announcements in the past
year, including a deal with Open Market on electronic commerce and one with
Sun Microsystems on incorporating Novell Directory Services. Nothing has
happened yet. What's the problem?
Gibson: Novell got the last piece of the Open Market product in the fall and waited
until then to begin coding. In the past, Novell hasn't done work in phases. Part of
what I bring to Novell is an alternative view, a creative way of thinking that will help
products get out the door quicker.
Deseret News: Five of the 10 members of Novell's executive team joined the
company in the past year. Is the group finding a synergy yet?
Gibson: If you look at the old Novell, most of the management rose through the
ranks. With new management coming to Novell from outside the company, you can
bring new ways of looking at issues, and it is jelling. The "One Novell" concept of
Joe Marengi (Novell president) is making that happen.
Previously Novell had eight or nine business units with each group positioned to
make themselves successful by competing against each other. They were silos with
very thick walls.
One Novell removed those walls. Now it's we win together and we lose
together.
Deseret News: Can Novell make the transition from a network operating
system company to a network services company?
Gibson: I know we can do it. Every decision I make is based on getting there as
fast as possible. That makes some employees upset. A lot of people at the company
made NetWare, which made Novell a billion dollar company. When we made the
decision to change NetWare to IntranetWare, there was some resistance.
There will be some too in changing to network services. It will take me some
time, but I'm committed. |
