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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chris_Long_NOVL who wrote (27940)	8/29/1999 7:11:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

An interesting dynamic here... AOL who wants to develop this AOLAnywhere system to deliver its content and advertising and Novell, the leader in directory-based networking who has products that could enable this to be a reality. AOL wants access from traditional PCs and Macs to TV settop boxes to handhelds (PDA - AOL Mail for Palm is in beta right now) and more. They are working to develop a broadband market presence as well as expand their brand name into other areas (I'm waiting for them to buy out a TV network). Novell is developing NDS to become the directory for the internet. AOL would be the grandest showcase Novell could ever want for NDS. Extending AOL's ability to manage their user's experience through NDS would be a powerful tool for them. Let's not forget AOL could then use policy-based networking to provide "extra" or premium services. I've heard talk about AOL going totally FREE with basic user access and charging for premium content (like Cable TV in a way). Premium content would be stuff like Motley Fool, Stock Market and Financial areas, Online Games and a few other places on AOL that are totally driven by their content. AOL already tracks access into each area (not by individual user account IDs but rather by client requests for content forms/pages. Client requests are not verified via the username but rather by an IP address assigned to the client software during login). Before anyone gets alarmed let me explain in detail. Each "page" of content on AOL is presented via a "form". These forms have certain properties which are filled in by the content creator (such as background color, headline, graphics, text etc). There are 100s of forms which someone can use to create content. Each form is reference by a number. AOL uses this number to track requests and not the other way around. Servers count how many times a form's ID number is requested and tally's it on a log. They have long used these statistics in marketing deals in an effort to provide revenue guidelines for themselves as well as for partners. They could easily use these statistics to weed out which areas of content would be premium or FREE. If digitalme can offer AOL a way to micro-manage user access into these areas as well as track payment or usage of these areas, it could drive AOL's desire to buyout Novell. Being able to deliver more secure user accounts will also create a more positive e-commerce environment for it's members. This would create more interest in e-commerce on AOL as well as driving more vendors into AOL. What was last year's numbers on AOL members spending for the Christmas season? $200 million? I don't remember...but it was something like that if not more. Heck, if AOL wants to trade my Novell stock for some of it's stock I won't mind. Except in the last few months the stock has been in a tailspin. Perhaps AOL may buy Novell and take an unusual track by leaving them as they are - a fully independent business unit. Let the Netscape guru and Drew Major work out the details of how NetWare, NDS, Java and broadband access could change our lives while Eric Schmidt guides the ship. Now I know we've all complained ad nauseaum about Novell's marketing. I'm not sure AOL's marketing prowness is exactly what we were looking for but hey, AOL's marketing has managed to do some pretty good things considering some of the "problems" AOL has encountered. Could be a good mix. I'd still like to know if there would be any chance AOL/Netscape/Novell would pass DOJ muster.... Peter J Strifas