What doesn't make any sense to me re: IBM buyout, is that I can't see Schmidt willing to let go of Novell this early in the game -- after just begun his efforts to turn the company around. True, Novell could be an independent subsidiary of Big Blue, but Schmidt would still have to answer to the guys "up top". He wouldn't be able to conduct a turnaround exactly as he would like, bacause at some points the IBM execs would have differing ways of going about things -- the day Novell is an IBM subsidiary, its purpose would be to serve the greater interest: IBM. Schmidt could not possibly have known 3 months ago that IBM might aquire Novell (if this turns out true)...he has already initiated a huge facelift at the company, cutting jobs and cash-sucking projects, improving efficiency, reducing inventories, refocusing strategy and marketing, and campaigned around the clock to convince the world that Novell was still a force to be reckoned with in networking. If he allows another company to seize control, he loses his autonomy...he will be forced to execute others' visions on how to turn Novell around, rather than his own vision. He has repeatedly announced publicly that he hopes to turn the company into the #1 internetworking force within a year. IBM bureaucracy would only hamper this process...witness their foul-up with OS/2 where they suffocated the product and its development, causing it to extinguish despite its excellent potential -- in the right hands, it could have been a real threat to Windows. I just doesn't make sense for Schmidt to allow a buyout...an alliance, yes. But not a buyout. We've all heard this noise twice before. Last Dec and Feb. If anything, the company was more vulnerable then -- before a new CEO grabbed the wheel to turn around the company. I doubt Schmidt wants another player sticking their fingers in his pudding.
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