Briefing.com ...
NOVELL (NOVL) 27 11/16 +1 1/2 Novell's biggest challenge has been straightforward: how to avoid becoming just a supplier to the existing NetWare customer base. Years ago, retired Chairman Ray Norda tried to solve this problem by acquiring lots of different companies, but without success. Since taking over two years ago, CEO Eric Schmidt's focus has been towards the Web. Today, Novell announced deals with Compaq (CPQ), Lucent (LU), Check Point (CHKP) Cabletron (CS) and IBM (IBM), all of whom announced internet support for their respective internet products. In the IBM relationship, IBM's WebSphere commerce package will be certified on NetWare. This gives current NetWare IT systems the ability to more easily become connected to the Web. Just as the IBM ad says, connecting all of the existing inventory and transaction processing systems to the Web is key. While the deal initially benefits IBM more than Novell, it does give NetWare customers Internet expansion possibilities, and keeps them from being forced to other platforms. Keeping NetWare "internet" capable is at the root of all the relationships announced today. But much more interesting is digitalme, also announced today. This product is more in line with the direction Novell needs to take to continue growing. The digitalme software product provides the ability to control how much information about you is revealed to web sites you visit. When you register your personal information with digitalme, a software component you must load onto your PC. Whenever you visit a web site, you can specify what information is transfered to the site, including control over things you now cannot control: your bookmark list, your individual serial numbers on the Intel chips, the ID code in MicroSoft products. There is even an "auto-registration feature" which allows you to transmit a prespecified amount of information to a web site. However, it is primarily for credit card transactions that Citigroup and First USA are interested in digitalme. They have signed on for test applications. The press release doesn't confirm how Novell will make money on digitalme, but if it follows the current thinking, Novell will charge web sites for the corresponding products which receive and process digitalme information. In this respect the business model would resemble the coming Millicent product from Compaq and the InstaBuy product from CyberCash, although neither have the privacy control features of digialme. Briefing.com finds it intriguing that even while portals an ecommerce companies are claiming their power lies in the ability to track customers and customize sales pitchs, other companies, like Novell, are developing products to defeat such systems.
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