Dispatch: Tales From The High-Tech Front Lines
By Lawrence Aragon
Novell Is Unshaken By Latest Shake-up
It's 10:30 p.m. in a stuffy Provo, Utah, hotel room. My eyes are blurry from all the prep reading. I've filled three pages with questions. Not much more I can do for tomorrow morning's meeting with Novell CEO Bob Frankenberg. How about some pizza and a beer? (Oops. This is Utah. Have to settle for an O'Doul's.) When I return, I find the red message light blinking. It's the public relations factotum who set up my interview. "Larry, we're going to have to cancel tomorrow." What!? I've been wrangling for weeks to meet with Frankenberg. And just like that--it's off.
That's Novell for you. In the past few weeks, I've gotten the impression that Novell, despite being a $2 billion company, is flying by the seat of its pants. Company sources say they saw the Frankenberg hit coming. But it wasn't until the night I arrived in Utah that the board finally pulled the trigger. This is the company's problem, I'm told repeatedly: It just takes too long to make a decision.
When I arrive at Novell's Orem campus the next morning, I'm surprised to find it's pretty much business as usual. No death-in-the-family daze here. I take a straw poll throughout the day: Everyone's cool with the decision. I buttonhole a few of the thousand or so employees walking back from new Chairman John Young's "all-is-well" speech, given in the parking lot. They like his style. And they agree the company needs a new leader. Someone more aggressive.
When I meet with various Novell officials, it seems as though Frankenberg was never really there. There's the standard "Bob did a lot of great things," but mostly it's, "Joe Marengi is just what we need right now." This is the same guy a former Novell executive described as having an "Atilla-the-Hun management style." Now
you don't hear anything of the sort. Mary Burnside, the company's chief operating officer, says Marengi's 16 years in the U.S. Coast Guard gives him a "very strong sense of discipline and the ability to focus and execute." And Chief Technical Officer Glenn Ricart says, "he's not going to take any excuses."
More than anything, all the senior managers I encounter seem relieved. Novell has been sliding, and Frankenberg couldn't stop it. They've been looking for a big dog who isn't scared to take a bite out of anyone who gets in his way. And they all believe Marengi has the teeth.
V.K |
