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: Roger Lagerquist who wrote (21603)	4/9/1998 9:38:00 AM
From: Paul Fiondella	Read Replies (3) of 42771

BOD removal While it is true that we tried to remove the entire BOD last year, as a statement about its abysmal performance, it was never an all or nothing proposition, as our White Paper pointed out. Privately, several other approaches have been tried without success. At the annual meeting last year I suggested to the CFO that the BOD be expanded to include additional members appointed by Schmidt to bring in people more familiar with Novell's technology. This constructive suggestion was repeated frequently and to a large number of management people by email. It didn't happen. This year there was some ambiguous statement by Schmidt that they might expand the BOD. All this confirms to me is that Schmidt is not in charge and that Novell at the top continues to move too slowly in an industry where you have to have the managment and executive structure to turn on a dime. Example: Novonyx. It came into existence because the Novell BOD and acting CEO couldn't get their act together with regard to forming the proper relationship with Netscape and probably were looking to line their pockets with the spin-off becoming the internet company and an IPO. Schmidt corrected that by bringing the effort back in house and firming the Netscape relationship, but we were on our way before he intervened to an impossible situation for Novell, one in which it was spinning off the internet component of the company! Novonyx would never have happened if the BOD understood the industry. So you can see it is not the "number" of BOD members that are voted out that is at issue, it is the quality of the entire BOD. The fact that decisions are being taken too slowly and that the company cannot fill all of its senior slots in a reasonable amount of time is evident to this investor. I think the most constructive thing Noorda can do for the company is meet with some of the large institutional investors and share his concerns with them. I don't know whether there are institutional investors that are more committed to the future of the company than to control but certainly the pension funds are in that category. They don't care who runs the company as long as it is run well. He can suggest to them that it is time to place people on the BOD who know what the internet is and where Novell fits into the picture. Novell must fit into that picture soon. That picture includes IBM, SUNW, ORCL, and NSCP among others. Noorda knows what I mean. Unfortunately there isn't all that much time for Novell. You will recall how Schmidt was set up with that first quarter when he came in. The last two quarters and this manufactured "turnaround" look like another set up. The worst case scenario would be a bad coming quarter and criticism of Schmidt and his strategy surfacing. (Especially if investment companies that bought into Novell recently get burned the way the rest of us have been.) Then you can throw in the towel on this company. ==================== I no longer own shares in this company and strongly suggest that those of you that do reflect upon the price of internet company Yahoo etc. etc. vis a vi "internet company Novell". ---Preacher Paul signing off.

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