Hello Paul,
> Lemon meet Hemingway, you got to shorten your blather
I appreciate the company you have put me in! Thanx!
> No wonder you have such a hard time communicating toother people at
> Novell.
I'm not sure that I have such a problem! But I *do* have a different perspective from many of the "mindless troops" wandering the halls of Novell. And that means a different opinion ... something that is not taken too well by many of the people who don't want change!
> I got two things out of your post.
> (1) 'You have been working to arrange strategic partnerships.'
>
> SO what have the results been? The NFS initiative was brilliant. Did
> you get IBM to buy into it? The Sun-Java initiative was good.
> Somebody got the message at Novell to solidify on standards that are
> not MSFT's. But what about initiatives to Netscape and Oracle?
I'm not sure what NFS initiative you are referring to ... or do you mean NDS? If so, no I'm not working on the NDS licensing deals. But I have been trying to drive certian NDS initiatives that represent my perspective of how to gather more public exposure of NDS.
I agree with you on the Sun-Java initiative. Good idea. Java is a good strategic direction that provides many benefits to our customers. It offers a great deal of promise for the future of application development and execution. I really liked posting #9058! Awesome insight into the future of distributed applications and the brokering and trading of common objects.
As for Oracle and Netscape ... sorry but I don't know that there is anything I can comment on here ...
> (2) You think the future is small business's outsourcing to ISP's
> and you use Kinko's as an example.
I guess that my main objective was to indicate that I think that many business services are going to become more and more transparent and the location of them will not be as "fixed" as our present implementations. Many people are now outsourcing Web Service to ISPs and WSPs (Web Service Providers?) and I think this trend will continue ... and even gain momentum. Technologies like Java, and Border services (wow ... a Novell Technology ... not yet effectively marketed in my opinion ...) will make this easier.
> No that's not the intranet market. Most small businesses are going
> over to NT because you haven't given them a replacement product for
> their Novell servers.
I know that this will seem very dense to you, but I don't understand the logic of your statement here. You're saying that small businesses are migrating to NT, not because of any other value provided by NT, but because there is no "replacement product for their Novell servers."? I'm not sure that the majority of the analyst community would agree with you here. I, IMHO, think that it is much more than that, including the functionality that small businesses are getting from a non-dedicated, solutions oriented operating system, along with an incredible amount of marketing hype.
As Joe expressed in his posting about the Microsoft seminar that he attended, they are doing a very slick job at marketing solutions. I also attend these seminars (as much as possible ... I just went to the same Intranet seminar!) and they do a very good solutions showcase. Real problems ... real solutions. Or at least "good enough" solutions.
I also am very disgusted that I am still running several NT boxes on my personal T1 to provide all the services that I want! That sucks! But it has given me my own "hit list" of what has to happen to NetWare to get us where I want us to be. And I know you won't believe this, but we are getting closer.
> These people use Wordperfect on a server or a shared file system
> database.
I like where this is leading ... because it's what I'm talking about. I guess that I just see a slight paradigm shift in what you and I call a "server" or "shared file system" and where it is located. When I click the "Save" button ... do I care where it is saved to? Of course ... I want it to be saved to a high-performance, high-reliability, high-availability place. It should be backed up and be secure. Do I care if it's a local server? What if the local "server" is really a local cache? What if I have replication and fault-tolerance built into the whole infrastructure of the "network utility" that I subscribe to?
> You should have given them an intranet product that would
> have let them continue to do their word processing and database on
> the server with future JAVA hooks and Corel's JAVA version of WP.
> Where's the product????????????????????????
Well ... first I don't know that we want to "give" them all of this. parts of this we have to make money on. We have continued to be fully compatible with older versions of NetWare, added the JVM on the server, and (I think) have been working/talking with Corel about their Java WordPerfect. Now I don't know of any license or agreement to distribute it, but compatibility is surely being investigated. I know that I demo it at least once a month ...
Since the Corel Java app isn't finished shipping product I'm not sure that we could have a "product" based around this today.
> ISP's are too slow. We are certainly not going back to a visual time
> sharing mode of business activity using Netcom or AOL or AT&T.
> People like their PC's and will use the NET for other models of
> business activity.
I'm not sure what you specifically mean by "ISP's are too slow." Do you mean that the current configurations of the 'net are to congested? Or do you mean that affordable connections are too bandwidth constrained? Or are you meaning the actual personnel at the ISP are too slow to react to day-to-day problems?
I guess that my exposure to what is going on in the Internet world (including at Novell) indicate that experts in the field have recognized these individual issues and are resolving them. Everytime I turn around a new, higher speed modem is released ... ISDN going in ... more bandwidth ... cheaper ... And placement of services is coming in to play. Putting Web servers on larger connections at ISP Web Server farms ... As for congestion that's where Border Services and hierarchical caching comes into play. The 'net will soon start to see some changes in how data is more efficiently, and more intelligently, routed around. And (maybe marketing again at fault) Novell is firmly in the middle of this.
> (Notice the airlines use it for last minute seat placement, others
> use it for price lists, parts availability ie to supplement the
> vendor/supplier relations they already have with their
> customers...let's see if Bob has the part and what he is
> charging...this is what small business's will buy into eventually)
Ah yes ... it is growing into far more marvelous things than we will ever perceive!
> WAKE UP SCOTT. Do some more homework and start to question your
> assumptions.
I do question them continuously. I actually spend 15+ hours a week (outside of Novell hours) discussing these very topics with several other analysts and computer scientists. I also try to read as much thought-provoking material, magazines, and periodicals that I can. Oh yeah, and I try to get at least 6 hours of sleep a night. I would suggest that you also do some homework about the future ... I think that you are under estimating what is going on around you. It's one of those forest and trees things ...
> Q1 was a disaster, and that isn't me speaking its the analysts that
> rated the company an "avoid".
Disaster is an interesting word. I guess again it's all perspective. Per Salah's evaluation, I now have some more questions about how some of this stuff works. I will agree that much needs to be done at Novell. As for who is speaking, I know that you are one person, and I know that I saw *one* analyst rate the stock an "avoid". This is almost like the nightly news ... they never want to tell how many million people flew safely all over the world ... just focus on the one accident. Can you tell me how many analysts are out there and the Novell ratings at all of them? I really want to know ...
> It's your assumptions that are wrong not 'the world is against
> Novell' nonsense.
I try not to assume too much. I try to base my opinions and ideas on as much foundation and fact as possible. I guess that we will see who's world is the future. I believe strongly in the one I see developing before me.
Also, I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "not 'the world is against Novell' nonsense." I surely don't see the world being against Novell. I see a company that slipped and fell down and is trying to get up again ... and I see it coming up and getting back on track.
Scott C. Lemon |
