Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy?

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To: Scott C. Lemon who wrote (19701)	1/19/1998 5:03:00 AM
From: Don Earl	Read Replies (1) of 42771

Hi Scott, <I truely believe that what I see on this board lately is a lot of views of trees ...> I have a great deal of respect for your dedication to Novell and I hope you don't take any of my contrarian view points as being directed at you personally. To a large extent I believe it's a matter of perspective. If there is something really happening inside Novell it is invisable to the outside world. From the outside this is what it looks like to me: 1. In the last 5 years NOVL has lost 80% of it's value. 2. NetWare sales continue to decline. 3. The small business segment of Novells market is all but gone and Novell has all but declaired defeat in that one area that "could" provide growth. 4. The company is still having problems getting products to market on time. NDS for NT slipped by 2 months. 5. Marketing is a huge problem for Novell. Schmidt promised an increase in the marketing budget last summer but the last 10Q shows that the budget not only was not increased, but that it was cut back along with the sales staff. 6. Novells lack of an advertising budget means they have no friends in the media when they need to respond to bad PR quickly. That would be assuming they even try to monitor the press in order to gain and grow public support. 7. On going, and highly publicized internal disputes with employees: a) Wolf Mountain Group b) Novonyx c) The Jeff Merkey sexual harrassment suit d) Lay offs e) Numerous defections of high level executives 8. The COO position has been left vacant for the better part of a year. Schmidt is still trying to wear too many hats and does not know how to deligate authority. Hiring a professional business man, with turn around and marketing experience, is something that should have been done 6 months ago. 9. The Board of Directors that have been running Novell into the ground for years are still in charge. Those are the trees that make up Novells forest. I don't currently hold any stock or option position on NOVL, although I did take some profit on puts last month. It helped off set my last loss on a long NOVL position. Actually, I was thinking about taking out another long position for awhile as the omens were starting to look favorable for a short term bounce. I'm more than a little annoyed by the Microsoft insinuation that from now on the famous Windows dll. crash will be the fault of NDS, and Novells lack of an effective response. It screwed up what was starting to look like a good trade. Since I'm the only person that I know of on the thread that took any profits on Novell last month, you can assume that I'm not whinning. Since I don't hold a position at this time, you can assume I'm not trying to talk the stock up or down. The above 9 statements are easily verifiable facts with very little opinion thrown in. Novell is in worse finiacial shape than it was 9 months ago when Schmidt took the helm. Less cash. Less revenue. Less book value. I don't think it's all his fault, it's just that that kind of downward momentum is pretty hard to stop. REVENUE IS THE FOREST. At least for those of us that invest in publicly held companies. Regards, Don

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