Dwight,
As a Bellcore employee, I can tell you that we still have a lot
of influence in the design, development and deployment of systems
in the RBOC networks. The sale to SAIC was announced but it will take
between 9 - 14 months to get all of the regulatory approvals,
and the RBOCs will still need to look to us to maintain and improve their embedded systems even after we are sold. So I agree
with the earlier post that it is good news for Novell that Bellcore
is establishing Novell as the standard in the RBOCs. I don't work
on that project, so I have no inside info, but that is how it
appears to me knowing our relationship with the RBOCs.
As far as SAIC acquiring Novell...on one hand, I doubt it as they
just spent a nice chunk of change for Bellcore and I would be
surprised if they were to undertake another acquisition so soon,
especially one as large as would be required for Novell.
Also, SAIC is an employee owned company and VERY proud of it, so they
would not make a stock offering but it would have to be cash,
and again I doubt they could do that at this time. On the other hand,
SAIC is a very large government contractor (over 70% of revenues
comes from govt) and is currently in the process of trying to
diversify into providing services for the healthcare, environmental and telecommunications markets. Hence the purchase of Bellcore to get into telecom, so why not Novell to further diversify into NOS market and add synergy with their other operations. But I doubt it.
To sum up, good news for Novell that Bellcore is pushing their platform, but that is as far as I think it will go. Doubt if there
is a purchase in the works here.
-Leo |
