Slitz should have had an answer
Look at this dialog:
IBD:
What's the importance of the directory
announcements you made at Brainshare?
Slitz:
The major new thing that we showed was
Digitalme. It takes the power of our directory
technology and puts a more human, personal
face on the way people can interact in a
network.
Digitalme is an individual identity that a
person controls. By identity, I mean various
information about you. In my case, it would
be my business telephone number, cell phone
number, e-mail address, physical address,
etc. All of those go into a profile. And I can
use pieces of that information for different
interactions I want on a network, so that
people know how to reach me and know
how I want to be reached. This is all shared
in a large flexible (network) directory, which
is NDS version 8.
IBD:
Who will use Digitalme?
Slitz:
There's a number of different ways that we
can ''productize'' this technology, and we just
haven't determined that yet. The central thing
is that it has to be held in a directory. We'll
be talking more in the next several months to
figure out how best to bring this technology
to market.
IBD:
Other firms, such as Microsoft, are working
on similar ideas. How long can you wait to
announce an actual product if you want
people to use your technology?
Slitz:
I think you wait until you get things right and
they work. We have a very strong belief at
Novell that we're not in the future business.
We're in the product business. And we want
to be sure of the products that we put into
the market.
=========================
Did you catch the uncertainty.
Q. Who will use Digitalme?
A. We just haven't determined that yet.
Huh!!!
You what. You don't know what to do with the product that you just said was one of the major announcements of Brainshare?
That's not the way you deal with the press. Who is briefing Mr. Slitz about the possibilities of Digitalme? Or not briefing him? Why didn't he say something about Novell's internet strategy, where digitalme fits in, and e-commerce? I have three possible applications of Digitalme that even I can talk about. He didn't say anything about who the partners are or that Novell is partnering or that Novell is eagerly working with partners that will bring out a whole slue of products based upon digitalme technology.
What he said was we don't know yet what we are doing with this product.
Not good. That's the old Novell marketing. Hi press, we don't know what we are doing with our internet strategy. Hope you gals don't ask us any more questions. (Okay we'll go ask Microsfot.)
I'm disappointed with this interview. There is much more that Slitz could have said without having to be specific about products under development. He didn't dangle anything in front of the press. All he said is --- we don't know what we are doing with digitalme yet.
All the marketing people at Microsoft are ecstatic. |
