Re: NT versus NetWare. First of all, I apologize if somehow this is posted twice -- browser semantics may have caught me. In any case, thanks for the note. In looking at your e-mail address, I saw that you were from Novell -- and thus understand your having a vested interest in Novell's and NetWare's future. To put us on an even playing field in terms of where we're coming from, I was in a former life (up to about 18 months ago) the head of a $1.5B server business (buried in a much bigger company) that sold Unix, NT, NetWare, and other operating systems. We were pretty agnostic about what we sold -- we just tried to generate revenue for the server business itself.
Now -- my customers were screaming for NT. There were absolutely folks who wanted Novell too -- but NT blasted it away. I agree that it being from Microsoft, and Microsoft heavily touting NT, were factors in that over and above any technical merits. However, the issue I noted in my last letter was also predominant in their minds -- the fact that they could lower their overall server count by decreasing their total number of servers by merging their application and network file servers. I agree with you that NetWare is a superior file server -- however, it is a vastly inferior (if at all) application server -- not because Novell is dumb or anything but because the NLM-based architecture of NetWare doesn't lend itself very well to generic application services.
I do think I see in your article a way for us to have a fact-based discussion about all of this. It hinges around your statement that "Those who are trying NT are returning to Novell in droves". I can readily accept that you have better insight into this than me -- after all, my direct personal involvement ended 18 months ago in this market. What I'm wondering is if there is any way we can quantify your statement. The most obvious question is "how many NT customers are returning to Novell in droves?". From this you could calculate the impact on revenue and unit growth rates of NT, given either Microsoft's numbers or IDC's (or any other market analyst's) numbers. If that's something that can't be answered, then perhaps the question might be generalized to "what is Novell officially telling financial analysts concerning NetWare's growth rate from now to the year 2000"? And if that can't be answered, then maybe just speculation of what percentage of the estimated number of PC servers shipped this year will be NetWare -- and what do you project this to be in the year 2000.
That's at a high level. At a low level I'd be interested in hearing how you decided that NetWare was the fastest OS on the market -- which standardized benchmark (TPC-C, TPC-D, AIM, Neal Nelson, etc.) did you use and what are those results head-to-head with other OS's? I'd also be interested in hearing your specific views on how NetWare will compete with NT when the directory services are available for NT and NT then is able to do both file services and application services.
I realize in reading this over that you probably think I'm some kinda anti-Novell flaming idiot -- but what I really am is a guy who would invest in Novell if I could get convinced that I had a good chance to make a profit. I'm hoping that you can educate me to the point that I can see that chance of a profit -- because at this point, I don't.
Sincerely,
Mark |
