Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Ellen who wrote (30558)	3/2/2000 2:05:00 AM
From: Frederick Smart	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

B2B Energy Will Fall Flat.... >>I don't understand the fervor to have 'just' an end user product and I don't see anything 'fatal' about the business-to-business avenue. Quite the contrary.>> Ellen: B2B is all the rage right now. Savings in administration and other middle layer costs are extraordinary: 25-40+% in most cases. The magnitude of this arbitrage is incredible. But it misses the primary point. Companies that focus exclusively on B2B over the next few years will miss out completely on the real revolution that's happening: The growth and development of individual and community trust and information networks. These channels will become the virtual distribution networks of this New Century. Put your ear to the IP rail. This is the secret most "companies" will completely miss out on. For after they eat their B2B FREE lunch they will wonder where all the energy and ideas and trust went to. They will then realize that the Old Business model party is over. Novell has a choice. Lock down and try to benefit short term from this B2B FREE lunch. Or open up and begin generating the food for this next growth phase: TRUST. For "B" - ie. "business" - will be replaced by "S" - ie. service. This "Business-to-Business" stuff is not unlike watching the chairs change on the deck of the Titanic. Those who know there's an iceberg ahead will jump off the boat and be forced to warm up the icy waters of service. What defines community? Our individual and collective acts to help and serve each other. Service? You bet these waters are downright freezing in most companies. But when companies extend trust back to their customers the waters of service begin to warm up. B2B is just downright self-centered. Let's all high-five ourselves and save money. There will be some companies which will plow these savings into efforts to extend trust and warm up these waters of service. They will risk taking the necessary transformational changes to become less and less like "companies" as they become more and more like a community. Novell's technology is the perfect infrastructure to develop apps which can usher in this New World which will be characterized by the decline of traditional companies and the rise in power and influence of individuals and these new communities. One look at the direction and course of the Dow Jones Industrial Average this year should give everyone a clear indication that this process from Old to New is rapidly underway. And it's very ironic that Microsoft finally found a chair on this fateful ship. Peace.

To: Ellen who wrote (30558)	3/2/2000 10:13:00 AM
From: Paul Fiondella	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

You don't get it either? First of all Cisco makes a required internet product --- the router that you connect into to connect to the internet. That is a piece of hardware not software. Without it you can't connect. It dominates that internet sector. Novell doesn't make any product that is required by the internet. Novell has a very useful technology --- NDS which could become a directory standard for the internet but currently isn't. Comparisons between these two companies given their market share are ridiculous. Cisco owns its market. Novell doesn't. The end-user is just that, the end user of your products. There isn't any reason why Novell engineers cannot take their infrastructure products such as ichain and eDirectory and put together B2B solutions. (and in the case of the consulting group they are.) However to reach the point at which you dominate the market for any B2B application you have to have a compelling solution (and it has to be general) which every end user demands to have on his/her desk. That is the reality of the internet. This is such basic stuff I'm amazed I still have to explain it to anyone on this thread. If you don't understand the fervor then you don't understand the internet. Unfortunately an amazing amount of people within Novell still don't understand that until you reach the point of having a compelling solution for the end users of your product, you don't have a business. You can have all the technology you want, just as Bell Labs had, you can invent the transistor, just as Bell Labs did, and never make a penny off of it. I'm not blaming the top management at Novell. They get it. But the middle management at Novell doesn't seem to get it. I'm told there are managers within Novell that do not use the internet!!! Study what happened at CNN. Duplicate that sale. How did they get in the door --- with the excitement of digitalme. Give me an exciting product to get in the door with. IT can be any product you choose based on any technology Novell has, but it has to excite the end user. I do not like the fact that Novell has not been a part of some major major B2B ecommerce sales.

To: Ellen who wrote (30558)	3/2/2000 12:46:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Not to jump down on your here but I think you may have missed interpreted Paul's comparision to Cisco. Cisco produces products that end-users (consumers, individuals) NEVER BUY which is a very similar position Novell finds itself (since they do not sell consumer products). We could argue that the "end-user" of Cisco products are people in MIS/IT departments who purchase Cisco products for use within the network they are responsible for but that would be a very thin argument from a very slight perspective. When we discuss "end-user" in a generic fashion (across multiple industry sectors), we sometimes blur lines in product lines, services and uses of products/services from different companies. We also tend to define "end-user" as a consumer - someone walking into CompUSA and buying software or products in shrink-wrapped boxes. Perhaps that's too broad a definition.... Basically, trying to find a company whose products and services are considerable similar to Novell means you have to take some liberties. Infrastructure and network plumbing is generally considered to be "hardware" and the software inherent in managing that hardware. With the evolution of that space, we find ourselves with companies who are producing software which creates services that lay on top of any company's hardware. Here is where we can define Novell - they produce software which creates and/or manages services which "live" upon specialized hardware from many vendors. This is a very unique point of view - one that MSFT can not yet claim since the environment it creates lives upon the Windows platform within the Intel-based computer sphere and the bulk of their products are aimed at the end-user (home computer, PC). Now going back to the Cisco analogy - the average person today has some understanding of "what Cisco does". They know from Cisco's marketing that 90% of all internet traffic travels THROUGH Cisco equipment at some point. They can equate Cisco's growth to the projected growth in the internet (many sources of numbers on that topic are available). Thus, they can map out something of a growth chart for Cisco over the next 3-5 years. Novell on the other hand - if you ask the average person - is not a well known entity. Most people you ask would either not have a clue about Novell or remember the WordPerfect fiasco. Here are just a few points people DO NOT KNOW: 1) 83% of Fortune 100 companies utilize Novell products in their networks (primarily NetWare and NDS). 2) ZENworks (the free product that can manage your Windows machines more effectively than another other desktop management tool available) but the full version of ZENworks which costs $39 per user, has an average ROI that pays for itself within 9 months! 3) NDS has over 40 million users! (I've heard 55 million but that's been argued - compare that to AOL and Novell has 2x the number of potential "eyeballs" that floats AOL's market cap). 4) NDS is mature and proven with a 7 year history - Active Directory does not. 5) Novell is creating software for personal identity management which will liberate every users of the web (and other internet services) from current limitations. If Novell could take these examples and make them COMMON knowledge for the average person it would equate to a totally DIFFERENT corporate image. Instead of a company chasing MSFT or trying to stay afloat in the face of MSFT competition, people would see Novell as a company that stands on its own with real products, real solutions and a real strategy. Novell needs to define it's image - something they can articulate in a short paragraph that makes sense to more people than those of us knowledegeable in networking. Make it as simple as Cisco's message (most people equate Cisco to the internet!). Until then, Wall Street will never believe in Novell and it's future. Regards, Peter J Strifas