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

To: Roads End who wrote (28555)	10/12/1999 2:14:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

<<If your solution is to give away all the development tools and to give away NDS maybe you really don't have a clue. Reaching a critical mass based on give aways builds a strategy of what, red ink? Steve>> I don't know -- there's this company in Redmond Washington that has been kicking the life out of EVERYONE using this type of strategy. Scary thought huh? Give your product away for free until customers/users are dependant on it, sort of like a street corner drug dealer with young kids - they create a customer for life. Giving away NDS is a great idea - something Novell should have been doing since at least 3Q this year, at least the NDS4NT and NDS4Solaris products. This would have allowed MANY companies the opporunity to test then use NDS in production without the obstacle of paying more for something they probably already use in their networks and if they didn't, imagine their surprise to use this wonderful product for free. Seed the market is the only way Novell can hope to win the "Directory War" that will heat up once Win2000 appears. IMHO, Active Directory can not compete head-to-head with NDS in terms of functionality, scalability or performance - and I say that not as someone who is a Novell supporter but as a professional. One day, it will be though and this is the promise that people will opt out of NDS for Active Directory. That is, unless Novell can prove to them otherwise with developer support, applications etc. Give it away now to save your market share later.... You know what they say, if you run with blinders on, sooner or later, you hit the brick wall you never saw. Is Novell doing this with their pricing strategies? I'm not sure. Peter J Strifas

To: Roads End who wrote (28555)	10/12/1999 5:29:00 PM
From: ToySoldier	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Riechers, Dont tell me your one of the dreaded Novell Strategists. You sound like it. Either that or you don't know Novell's history too well. Point 1: Exactly what in your mind do you think Novell's strategy is? Is it to create revenue generating NDS development tools? Do you think Novell creates and/or provides these tools as a significant source of revenue? I would find it hard to believe that "Making revenue/profit on Novell Development software" would be in their top 5 list. But hey! With some of the past marketing or strategy mistakes I have seen from Novell - maybe it is!?!?!? I hope I am accurate when I say that Novell does not put out Development tools like ScheMax to add significant revenue/profit to their bottom line. I would have to guess that Novell's objective is to put ScheMax on the market to promote/expand the marketshare of NDS and the take another step closer to reaching critical mass with the developers to NDS. If so, one does not put restrictions on the actual promotion tool. Putting a price on this product is a restriction that limits the tool's objective - to promote the NDS. Remember - the Critical goal is... In two words - NDS Entrenchment Point two: If Novell reaches the critical mass which causes "NDS Entrenchment", then the revenues they will realize from their best-of-breed NDS-enabled products like BorderManager, GroupWise, ManageWise, DirXML, NetWare, and even FUTURE charging of NDS extended platforms itself will make them all the money they could imagine. I never said that these and future products must always be given away for free. If and when NOVL attains NDS Entrenchment then they could charge what they want. Ounce of prevention - Pound of cure Point three: Novell currently is still far from reaching the status of "NDS Entrenchment"! And with MSFT's future release of Active Directory (as crappy as it is expected to be on its release), Novell could quickly watch the finishline getting further and further from their view. That is the end result of Novell not reaching "NDS Entrenchment". Point Four: If Novell does not reach "NDS Entrenchment", then Riechers, you aint seen RED to the extent that you will in the future!! That little bit of tactical red ink that Novell saved to meet quarterly expectation will become the Red Sea as Novell's NDS fades into obscurity and Active Directory "Entrenches". And exactly who then will want to buy that little fancy development tool called ScheMax or that Directory platform extension called NDSforNT? So Riecher, I am sorry, but you must get your head out of the tactical sand and start thinking strategic. And you asked Peter to name a product that MSFT gave away for free - all in the name of "ENTRENCHING" a product their had absolutely no control in. . . ever heard of Internet Explorer. How bout their consideration of offering MSN access for free? hmmmm And why would you think they have done that? And how successful has it been to meet strategic objectives? MSFT has critical IT technologies that are extremely entrenched - most importantly the desktop OS. They now dont need to give away most of their software unless a new threat comes their way. But dont think for a SECOND that they wouldnt in order to maintain to capture a technology entrenchment objective. They have in the past and they'll do it again. (so who doesn't really have a clue???) Toy

To: Roads End who wrote (28555)	10/12/1999 10:03:00 PM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Respond to of 42771

Hello Riechers, > If your solution is to give away all the development tools and to > give away NDS maybe you really don't have a clue. I'm not sure that the naming of the products makes ToySoldier's comments very clear. NDS for NT is (at this time) not actually NDS ... it is a product which enables the management of NT services, etc. using NDS. I think that what he was suggesting is that the development tools be given away, and the component which ties NT management to NDS being given away, or sold at drastically reduced prices. The customer would still need to purchase NDS, and other powerful NDS applications like ZENWorks ... > Reaching a critical mass based on give aways builds a strategy of > what, red ink? I would suggest that giving away the tools that increase the amount of information stored in NDS is key to success. This drives the standardization of "schema" or the "format" that data is organized and stored in the directory. It also creates an environment where more people are using NDS, and Novell has the opportunity to sell more NDS applications, etc. to it's customers. Scott C. Lemon