Wow-- a troika of posters on this thread get picked up by the SI weekly threadtalk report. Congrats Toy and Peter! =;-)
siliconinvestor.com
Alternative Music...
A Silicon Investor Highlight
By David Zgodzinski
February 15, 2000
It's a little routine we have in the car. My kid flips through the
radio stations and finds something loud that she likes. She
says "They're an alternative band."
I say "Alternative to what? Back in my day they were all
alternative blah blah blah?"
Let's say software is like music. Today there are a number of
competing bands with alternative music that are getting good
air play. But this wasn't always the case. There's one really
popular band out there called "Mr. Softy. " In the old days,
when Mr. Softy would come out with a new release, like the
multi-million seller Windows '95, it was really tough for the rest
of the business. The radio would play nothing but Mr. Softy.
Everybody would run out to buy Mr. Softy CDs. All the other
bands would suffer. But things have changed. PJ Strifas wrote
to the Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? thread on Jan. 30?
MSFT has always said that W2K was late
because they wanted it to be "the best work
they've done". Well, what happens when it's
more of the same old same old?
Windows2000 will be a good upgrade from
Windows NT 4.0. Will it be so good that
everyone will drop all other server OSes? I don't
believe so. If it was, people would not have
bought/upgraded to NetWare 5.0 in the last year
and the momentum behind Linux would not be
as it is today.
ToySoldier wrote on Feb. 8?
The pr-release hype for WIN2K and even MSFT's
stock price are almost no-shows. The media is
not brainwashing us industry readers with
WIN2K like they have in past major MSFT
releases. MSFT stock price has not shown
major hikes yet. And in fact the industry is
already looking for and finding the WIN2K
expected bugs and problems.
I would think that this is not just a tactical bad
sign for MSFT, but an actual shift in the industry
regarding MSFT's reign and dominance over the
industry. The major fundamental shifts in the
industry between MSFT's last major
announcement (WIN95) and this upcoming one
are showing signs of the damage it is starting to
apply to MSFT's aging business model/rules.
Competing software manufacturers have grown accustomed to
the Microsoft marketing extravaganza, and they have learned
how to deal with the juggernaut. Novell has been announcing
deals and partnerships at a furious pace in the past few weeks.
On Jan. 30, the company announced a cooperative effort with
Cisco. The companies shared standards to create software
tools that will simplify the management of routers and other
network devices.
On Feb. 1, Novell announced a joint venture with IBM in Europe
to sell and build networks for ebusiness. Quad-K wrote?
This IBM alliance in Europe is one hell of a deal.
This could push the stock up another $2 points
today. Talk about a marketing coup! GO!
ToySoldier agreed?
Yup, I would think that a deal between the
largest Directory Services company in the world
and the largest IT Services company in the world
is a big deal for both sides. Let's see if the
markets realize this.
The same day, Fujitsu Siemens announced the inclusion of
Novell's highly regarded Internet-caching technology together
with new hardware that will accelerate Net performance for
businesses and ISPs. The timing of these deals and many
others was no fluke. As ToySoldier wrote?
Any coincidence that todays onslaught of
announcements of eDirectory and Novell's new
Market Message of "Network Services Software"
are within 2 weeks of MSFT's long awaited
WIN2K release? I would think that the Novell
marketing team does not want to be forgotten
over the coming 1-2 months when the fully
expected WIN2K hype sweeps that nation.
GOOD CHESS MOVE NOVL - you're sounding
more like MSFT's marketing team (and that is
no insult at all!).
Novell's stock has been a strong performer. Since bottoming
out at $16 in October, Novell has more than doubled |
