RudeDog,
Regarding Compaq's commitment to Novell. Here is a letter that went out to all Compaq employees recently....
To All Compaq Employees Worldwide:
After all of the excitement of the Digital acquisition and the announcement that Compaq is laying the foundation for a new world of computing, it is time to step back for a minute and reaffirm some of the relationships that have made Compaq what it is today. I am thinking of Novell in particular. I want to update everyone on the importance of Novell and how critical Novell is in helping us make our server and storage sales.
First, let me be very clear about this, Compaq is committed to Novell. Novell represents almost $3B in Compaq server and storage revenue, which is today comparable to the size of our entire x86 NT business. In addition, there are over 1 million Compaq servers running NetWare today.
Compaq and Novell built the PC networking environment together. We laid down the infrastructure that allowed companies to move their computing power to the desktop in order to have the ability to share information across the enterprise. From that foundation, companies have added additional computing environments, such as UNIX and NT in order to move application processing power closer to the user. But through all of this, Novell has continued to be a leading provider of networking infrastructure.
Novell will enhance their leadership position through the use of Novell's Directory Services (NDS) - a unique directory that allows customers to manage their mixed environments. As customers deploy NT and UNIX application servers, they still need a way to centrally manage all the services of a network. Novell has proved with NDS that you can do this from one central location.
According to Novell, 79% of NetWare sites also have NT in their environment and the reason for this is simple, NetWare is the network and NT and UNIX are the application servers attached to this network. With over 80 million people logging into the network each day, this represents a large installed base, and an enormous opportunity for Compaq.
Compaq and Novell have worked together for over 12 years and have had a formal relationship for 6 years with the Enterprise Computing Partnership. Over the years this dynamic partnership has developed many industry leading products, from SFTIII to Hot Plug PCI, and we are looking forward to developing additional products with Novell.
This letter is our first step in re-energizing our commitment to Novell. As you are planning your goals for the next few months I suggest you look very closely at how you can maximize your sales by partnering with Novell. On September 14, 1998 Novell will be announcing their latest version of NetWare - NetWare 5. Eckhard Pfeiffer will be giving the keynote at the launch event and would like everyone to support this event.
Our market leadership depends on continuing to supply customers with the best products for their choice of operating system platform, no matter what operating system they choose. Let's make sure that any company planning to upgrade or purchase new Novell products also purchases Compaq hardware.
We must drive the NetWare segment as a key focus of our Enterprise strategy in our product plans, our sales efforts and on our communications to customers and analysts.
I look forward to working with you on this critical initiative.
Regards,
John Rose
Executive Vice President and General Manager
Compaq Enterprise Computing Group |
