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

To: ToySoldier who wrote (31130)	4/21/2000 8:36:00 AM
From: waldemar cyranski	Respond to of 42771

"Thats the model they use-PERIOD" sounds to me like a stubborn German personality trait sneaking through! Not a good character trait for a CEO! Also may explain the willy nilly marketing track record over the past few years?

To: ToySoldier who wrote (31130)	4/21/2000 11:44:00 AM
From: Paul Fiondella	Respond to of 42771

The point that this poster makes is that there is no marketing group for Drew major's Internet Operating System initiatives. I can't find any problem with the OEM model for sales, but if there is no marketing group to make the case for the products, then, that is a major disaster. I find it difficult to believe that that is true. ================ Incidentally would anyone care to comment on the speech I made to the annual meeting as to its substance.

To: ToySoldier who wrote (31130)	4/21/2000 12:37:00 PM
From: Villemure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Most companies focus their marketing programs on their important growth businesses. Not Novell, where Marketing is a kind of make work program that reflects no priorities and gets an incredibly poor return for the dollar. Perhaps caching is an important growth business for Novell. Then why no caching ads? Then why no inkling of the importance of caching when you go to Novell.com? Why no meaningful joint marketing with the caching partners? The reason is that Novell's expensive Marketing apparatus is focused on producing things like the current lead story on Novell.com: "Schemax Adds Power to NDS." Not a hint of strategy, priority, or customer benefit. Not the slightest clue as to why anyone should care. More of the inward-looking, incestuous non-marketing that Novell is non-famous for. Then go to the Products and Solutions section of Novell.com. Remember DENIM, with its neat three categories of Net Services products? It sounded great at BrainShare, but how soon Novell forgets. Instead, the Novell products are now divided into NINE categories. In fact, several products are put in more than one category, just to make it a little more hopelessly confusing to anyone possibly interested in buying something from Novell. ####

To: ToySoldier who wrote (31130)	4/21/2000 12:49:00 PM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello Toy, Your private poster is making a very good case ... > I asked Eric Schmidt point blank about Novell selling ICS > directly instead of just OEM. He said that's the model > they use - period. IE If I already have a 2 year old 4 > way Dell web server (and don't need new hardware for a > caching solution), I CAN'T BUY ICS - THE BEST SOLUTION - > UNLESS I GO TO GATEWAY OR DELL TO BUY IRON. I can say that this poster is touching on a subject that is well known inside of Novell - Insane Pricing Policies. The solution that this user should be able to purchase is "BorderManager" or "FastCache" ... and they should be able to purchase it for a reasonable price. But the problem was, IMHO, that when the pricing was first being set it was controlled internally by people who have no confidence in the concept, the market, and the capabilities of the product. The pricing was set far to high and because of that it prevented ubiquitous adoption. And caching, IMHO, will only be proven in value when large caching hierarchies are installed ... not when a single cache is bought. This is why cache networks like Mirror Image, Akamai, and InterVU are successful ... So high pricing on BorderManager, IMHO, prevented a large number of people and companies purchasing and installing the product. If this had not been the case, then Novell would have been able to have deeper penetration into accounts, and would be creating a platform for future caching application sales. Obviously the "Novell pricing gods" sure don't learn much from a company like Microsoft who realize the value of dominating a market with their products. Because BorderManager was so over-priced, and the average shop couldn't afford to buy and install it, the sales were not what they should have been and so it didn't gain the "visibility", IMHO, of the internal politicians at Novell. So it lost support, people, resources, etc. and has slipped far behind ICS in it's feature sets, etc. I agree completely with this poster that Novell needs to become the standard cache for the masses ... they are doing this slowly through the ICS/OEM channel, but are not providing the software-only solution for others to install. Also, just as I am a proponent of "Personal Directory" I also think that there needs to be a "Personal Cache" ... but that's another story ... ;-) Scott C. Lemon