Novonyx reportedly back in Novell's fold
Laura DiDio and Patricia Keefe (Computerworld)
Novonyx, Inc., the Orem, Utah-based start-up jointly funded by Novell, Inc. and Netscape Communications Corp., has been folded back into Novell after just seven months as an independent concern, sources close to Novell and Novonyx told Computerworld.
The move appears to be the first public step in carrying out Novell's overall corporate mandate for 1998. "The issue is to streamline the organization in a way that will impact three key strategic areas for us," said Christopher Stone, Novell's senior vice president of strategy and corporate development, in an interview at Computerworld yesterday. He characterized that effort as an internal reorganization. "We are going through this right now."
Stone identified those areas as including Internet-related activities, including Novonyx and Web servers; native IP for NetWare 5 (Moab); and application development (Open Solutions Architecture). "These are the key areas where we want to focus," he said.
Stone declined to comment on the disposition of Novonyx other than to confirm that he was managing the unit and to point out that it was shipping products. Novonyx is an "internal management issue at Novell," he added.
The Novonyx joint venture was formed last June to integrate Netscape's Internet and intranet efforts on the NetWare platform and to leverage Novell Directory Services via the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. Ironically, Novonyx today began delivering its first three products: Netscape Enterprise Server, Netscape FastTrack Server and Netscape Messaging Server.
An anonymous E-mail sent to Computerworld, purporting to be signed by Novonyx employees, said that late last week, with no warning, Stone had informed the firm's 55 employees that the fledgling venture was being absorbed back into Novell. Stone and Novell CEO Eric Schmidt are now running Novonyx, according to the letter. Novonyx President and CEO Rob Hicks reportedly was relieved of his management duties and is "under a gag order," the letter continued.
According to the letter, some Novonyx employees have petitioned the board of directors to allow the joint venture to remain a separate team under independent and separate management from Novell.
Computerworld confirmed the contents of the letter with sources inside Novonyx.
"There are some management changes going on at Novonyx, but it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time," said Raymond Nasr, Novell director of communications. "We will speak to the press when we have something to say. The real news is that Novonyx is aggressively shipping its first three products, and Novell's sales force will include the Novonyx products in their sales portfolio," Nasr said.
Nasr declined to comment on whether Netscape's investment in Novonyx has changed. "I can't comment on financial investments that Novell and Netscape have made or on Novonyx's financials, since it is a privately held firm," he said. Novell owned the majority share in the company. Nasr also declined to comment on Hicks' status.
Both the anonymous letter and internal sources at Novonyx said the staff was upset about being absorbed into Novell because they will lose their equity stake in the private concern. Additionally, they said Stone told them that layoffs could be in the offing.
In the interview at Computerworld's office yesterday, Stone had conceded that Novell's streamlining efforts might result in some layoffs, but he said they would be small. He talked instead about redeploying some employees from separate product groups into "cross-integration" or "cross-collaboration" teams. |
