TO ALL: Now is Mr. Smith of Communications Week reading this thread?
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Perspective
A Call to Action: Novell Needs to
Recapture Competitive Fire
By Tom Smith
February 17, 1997
Co-opetition. Grow the market. Two years ahead and gaining ... In its
halcyon days, these were some of the guiding principles at Novell, the
erstwhile networking powerhouse whose decline in recent years is both sad
and shocking.
These rules of the road were coined by Ray Noorda, the company's longtime
chairman and the guiding hand who led the company from obscurity to
dominance. Though somewhat simplistic, they were nonetheless the tenets
of an industry force that took the mantle of leadership seriously.
In early 1997, unfortunately, there is no such leadership emanating from
Orem, Utah. In fact, the silence from Novell headquarters is deafening. It
seems a pall has been cast over Novell, and the company does not appear
to be taking any action that is decisive enough to reverse its worrisome
slide.
Consider the following:
The CEO question. Bob Frankenberg was anointed by Ray Noorda as
heir to the throne, but Frankenberg inherited a mess and eventually left the
company without having righted it.
In steps Joe Marengi as president. The former sales czar is a respected
force in the company, though not an industry power broker with the
technology vision to return Novell to its position of prominence.
Last August, the company said it was aggressively seeking a CEO. Hello?
Is anybody home? Should we expect some word on this in 1997? One can
imagine the impact this has on morale among those employees who have
survived waves of layoffs, defections and executive departures in recent
years.
The sales model. Novell built its business on a vast, efficient, evangelistic
reseller base that eventually numbered in the thousands.
According to company officials, today Novell is moving toward a greater
percentage of direct sales. It's possible that soon the majority of its
business could be direct. These steps will inevitably weed out a large
number of resellers who add little value to the equation. It's a transition
fraught with peril, since it must be executed without alienating the
thousands of third parties that helped Novell get to where it is today.
One question that remains, of course, is whether the remaining resellers are
equal to the enterprise, Internet or intranet sale that Novell needs to make.
But the even larger question is: Can the reseller sales model that catapulted
Novell to the top continue to aid the company's long-term survival in an ever
more technical, sophisticated, multivendor environment?
Lack of leadership in strategic markets. A recent CommunicationsWeek
article outlined Novell's struggles in electronic commerce. At the time the
company was supposed to begin shipping an intranet product using
third-party technology, but company officials could not clearly articulate
when such a product actually would ship. Even using technology that was
not homegrown, the company could not get a product out the door as
promised.
Such an appearance of disarray can only make enterprise customers feel
more shaky about maintaining their commitment to Novell while the
Microsoft Windows NT juggernaut rolls on.
The Internet represented an opportunity for Novell to reinvent itself, to
position NetWare as a robust enterprise-scale platform, to reassume the
reins of leadership. For now, it appears that opportunity has been missed.
Failure to capitalize on strong products. Earlier this month, top
executives from Novell's Groupware division hit the road to convince analysts
that GroupWise 5.0 is still a contender in the market, despite being
hammered by bugs that have put off even some of its most loyal
enthusiasts. Their mood was somber, according to some who participated in
the briefings. But Novell's timing was another marketing blunder: They hit
the road during Lotusphere when all eyes were on Notes and Domino.
By its own admission, Novell is having trouble getting on the groupware
radar screens of network and IS managers at large organizations. "The
problem is, we are really struggling to get on the short list" of vendors, a top
Novell executive said at the time.
Not exactly the words of a company with a fighting spirit, or perhaps even a
fighting chance. Given the relative infancy of the Internet/intranet and
groupware markets, it is not too late yet, but precious time is slipping away.
Yes, Novell has impressive strengths that remain: a massive installed base
of network operating systems users and strong directory technology. But
those are no longer enough. The company needs to come out swinging,
quickly, with new products, a new attitude and new leadership, or risk
extinction.
Tom Smith is CommunicationsWeek's news editor.
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I could "SWEAR" I have seen this stuff before somewhere <scratching head>. Oh, I know <light bulb goes on over head>, Most of this stuff,
wait... ALL of this stuff is ON THIS THREAD!
OH, YOU GUYS ASKED FOR IT, YOU GOT IT!
GO TO BARRON'S ONLINE TODAY TO SEE YOURSELVES IN ACTION !!!!!!!
GO: barrons.com
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Joe.... |
