Novell's internet strategy
After thinking over the conference call and the reaction, or should we say over-reaction of some analysts to Novell's prospects over the last few days, I think something major has been overlooked.
The COMDEX announcements.
At COMDEX what you saw was Schmidt using his contacts in the industry and the marketing group in charge of e-directory, going after the right partners to make NDS an internet directory standard. They did two significant things.
First the announcement with Sun to me implied that Sun would begin to push NDS as the logon/authentication standard for ISP's on Solaris systems next year. If I'm wrong in this interpretation that's one thing, but if I'm right, with SUN being the ISP server king on the internet, this amounted to an endorsement of NDS and e-directoy and a major step forward for Novell trying to make NDS an internet directory standard.
Second was the announcement of Alta-Vista taking on e-directory for the basis of its instant messaging effort. Here. if I am correct, you have a major directory based application under construction --- instant messaging running on NDS at a major portal site. Now that is the kind of announcement that makes me wonder what the analysts are focusing on. Clearly instant messaging is a big internet application. Basing it on a directory makes it a directory based app and a significant one! Using NDS as the directory certainly helps advance Novell's mission of making NDS an internet standard.
As to digitalme, in contrast to the above marketing moves which are essentially "sell plumbing to the contracter" type moves, digitalme is more in keeping with Toysoldier's point --- it is the cutting and visible edge of Novell's technology for consumers. IT explains what Novell is doing to internet users.
Even here there is some real progress. Steve Adams was brought in to clean up the marketing mess that hampered the early release of an effective digitalme. I and others have banged Eric over the head about Novell's lack of creativity with regard to this and other consumer initiatives. Steve did what he had to do to get digitalme released. We are now promised both instant messaging and email in the next release. Adams moved on to what he does best, global marketing.
IT is now up to Eric to put this group on the creative energy track. If he turns this group into the equivalent of an internet start-up within the company and brings in some creative people from outside, and frees this group of legacy thinking and legacy control, then there will be a synergy between the SUn and AOL and Alta Vista initiatives and the digitalme technology. MArketing is not the problem with digitalme. IT is the user interface, the feature set, and the direction of the product which must be firmly in the hands of the most creative people at Novell.
In conclusion: There has been a lot more listening going on at Novell then we give them credit for. I see it in a number of ways, some mentioned above. Eric Schmidt just has to do more then set a vision for the middle managers to execute. He has to bring in more people that can do the job.
I take him seriously when he said a quarter ago that he had set out the path and left it to the senior and middle management to execute but that he would be evaluating the results and moving swiftly to get rid of those that cannot do the job.
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