Mark, I recommend that you look at some of David A. Lethe's earlier postings.
He really is sharp and his comments, which have inflammed not just a few of the Novell faithful, are among the best. I asked him once about what he thought of IBM buying Novell. He pointed out that with IBM's purchases of both Lotus and Tivoli that a purchase of Novell is highly unlikely.
David knows IBM and he knows the marketplace very well. He pointed out Novell's falling out with the VARs much earlier than the stock market noticed it. If David had shorted the stock at that time (~$17), he would be a happy man. Much happier than those folks in long positions.
IMO, Novell's future, if it has a good one, lies in the arms of a stronger suitor. The longer Novell waits, the less value its technology will have.
It makes sense for a company like Computer Associates to pick up Novell and cross sell its Unicenter, perhaps, and other products. It gets its foot in the door this way. Why it would want to, I don't know, but it could be a possibility. But this would be very bad for Novell's employees. CA is notorious for firing people like crazy after a takeover. I know when they picked up ASK, Oracle sent over a van near the company site to interview people.
Lucent might be interested later this year once they have their full umbilical cord cut from ATT (only 20% of the shares have been sold off so far). But why they would want to is beyond me. I'm only repeating stuff.
I have been day dreaming that CISCO would pick them up. Now that would be fun. It has a market cap of $30B, and Novell wouldn't cost much more than Stratacom. Besides, it might be worth it just to pick up Novell's real estate next door.
But the truth is Novell is a stupid organization. The managers are clueless and the directors wouldn't even make good rodeo clowns. When they have good technology, like Tuxedo, they get rid of it for a song. Or they hold on to it until it dies on the vine.
Novell is a one product company. It can only handle one product. You give the company two products and it gets confused.
Will it change now that everyone in the industry is watching? No, it will bury its head in the sand and blame Microsoft for catching it by surprise.
Will it change now that Farengi is in charge? Didn't he come from sales and marketing? Isn't that where they have their biggest problems? Well, since Novell really is a circus, you might was well have the biggest Bozo at the top.
RM |
