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

To: EPS who wrote (29133)	11/26/1999 12:51:00 AM
From: DJBEINO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Resellers not happy with Novell The company's management musical chairs and increasing reliance on its own Novell Consulting organization is resulting in frustration and dismay. By Mary Jo Foley, Sm@rt Reseller November 24, 1999 7:46 AM PT Novell Inc. may be making its numbers, but that's not impressing its resellers any. In fact, the more the company shuffles its management deck and pushes its Novell Consulting organization to take the lead on directory-services integration projects, the more Novell's channel is expressing frustration and dismay. In October, Novell (Nasdaq:NOVL) began a quiet campaign to streamline its Channel Council structure, say resellers. Citing Novell's increased field sales presence as the reason, Novell decided to make its Gold/Platinum Council an "informal" program. Instead of soliciting actively Gold and Platinum's input on Novell products and services, Novell has moved its supposedly closest partners into a far more passive roll, say resellers. Adding insult to injury, Novell has continued to push hard on growing its consulting business. The company cited its consulting, training and services growth of 37 percent for Novell's fourth fiscal quarter, to $50 million, as a key contributor to its fourth-quarter earnings of $58.6 million, or 17 cents a share, on sales of $345 million. For the fiscal year, Novell pocketed $191million, or 55 cents a share, on sales of $1.27 billion compared to a profit of $102 million, or 29 cents a share, on sales of $1.08 billion in fiscal 1998. Novell bragged to Wall Street analysts on Tuesday that it achieved its consulting headcount growth goals, increasing its consulting staff from 128 to 311 by the end of its fiscal year. Novell simultaneously added a "layer" of Novell Directory Services (NDS) expertise to its existing field sales organization, officials said. Schmidt's five-pronged plan Building consulting is one of the five business objectives set for the company this year by CEO Eric Schmidt & Co. The other four objectives, Novell officials said, include moving the company "beyond the turnaround phase, to the growth phase"; expanding its pool of directory-enabled Internet solutions; increasing the caliber and number of partners with which it is working, including companies like AltaVista, America Online Inc., Red Hat Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc.; and consolidating product marketing and management. In the coming fiscal year, Novell has some ambitious goals that may end up circumventing its long-time channel pals once again. Schmidt told financial analysts to watch for Novell to expand its partnerships with large systems integrators and consultancies in the coming fiscal year. The role left for smaller value-added resellers (VARs) is uncertain. The role resellers will play as Novell advances its digitalme and e-services strategies from an intranet ones to an Internet-services-based one remains to be seen. Novell is expecting to deliver its AOL-enabled InstantMe variant of digitalme within the next two months. And in January, Novell will be making its directory-enabled security, mobility and other NDS services available outside corporate firewalls in the form of its i-Chain initiative, officials told analysts. On the plus side On the plus side, Novell officials are predicting the management shuffle that rippled through the ranks of its top officials over the past few months has come to an end. Schmidt told analysts on Tuesday that while "not everyone had the right skills, talents and expertise to go after" Novell's NDS-as-platform vision, "now we're done with these issues." Quotes delayed by 20 minutes or more. Novell announced earlier this week that it had named Steve Adams as vice president of global marketing. Adams, who plays up his channel expertise from his most recent job as senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Citrix Systems, is a former Novell vice president, having managed the GroupWise division in 1994 and 1995. Adams, who will oversee Novell's channel partner relationships, among other duties, says he plans to "focus on packaging and positioning of Novell as a company" in the coming year. "We need to address our role in the network device space. We need to do a crisper job of defining our Web-infrastructure-provider messages. And we also need to establish ourselves as a trusted and valued brand in the Internet space," Adams says. "Finally, we need to strengthen and define the role of our partners, including our channel partners." zdnet.com