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

To: Villemure who wrote (31199)	4/25/2000 2:01:00 AM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello Giacomini, I have a couple of comments about the ScheMax announcement ... both good and bad. First, I'll start with the good news ... Novell is finally giving something away for free which should have been free a long time ago! We talked about it on this board, and I have yelled for it to be free ... and now it is! This is actually a very good thing. Novell has realized that instead of trying to milk some customer a ton of money for a tool that helps people use the directory, and put information into the directory they are going to provide it for free. This is called the "razor and razorblade" model ... make it easy for people to add information into a directory, so that you can charge them for the numerous applications that will use this information later! But now we get to a more critical issue that I feel Novell needs to address. And that is their confusion about what they have of value ... and, IMHO, it's not the directory. It's the directory-enabled applications. While working on digitalme, I spent a considerable amount of time thinking and talking with the engineers on the project. One of the "revelations" that hit me one day was that the "schema", or naming and organization of information, was the most important issue. The fact that we both call the 'attributes" the same name. Where Novell did not take advantage of this announcement is in the formation of an organization with their customers to define "standard" schema for various industries and purposes. This is exactly what Microsoft has done with BizTalk. If Novell were to involve their customers from the various industry segments, they could create the standard "schema packs" which would be the attributes of users in these various industries. They could then provide the ScheMax definitions, and would create a huge "de facto" standard moving forward, which they could mix with the various standards efforts. IMHO, this is a "strategy" that could be pursued ... what I see is a "tactical" announcement. I'm glad to see it, but it appears to be tactical ... ;-( On another note, I suggest that you go and try to download the app. It is amazing to me that Novell requires so much form-filling and information just to get a tool! They have a form that requires numerous fields and questions to be answered. Come on! This is a FREE product that can't be used on anything but a NetWare system with NDS! Why be so determined to "mine" me for information? Let me get it, and if I want anything else out of you - like service or support - you can ask questions then! You already know your registered users and developers! And it doesn't seem to work if you don't allow cookies! I haven't seen any other site that is so "invasive" when offering free products. .. Oh well ... like I said ... good and bad. I have to say that the product is one of the best out there - acquired with the Netoria acquisition. Very cool stuff ... Scott C. Lemon

To: Villemure who wrote (31199)	4/25/2000 8:00:00 AM
From: Frederick Smart	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Business Case #4....... For the past 2+ years I've been working with an exciting DOT.COM - not a NOT.COM - company located right in Novell's back yard. I recently position this company for sale to one of the largest discount broker dealers in this country. My company has a minority stake in this company. I've been waiting for months for Novell to open up to the point where there would be a sense of risk, creativity and awareness for the massively powerful technology behind examples such as Drew Major's ICS initiative. The company I've referring to transfers and routes OBJECTS which contain digital information that goes into technical/fundamental financial graphs, calculations and other related tools and services. I have told these folks about Novell and ICS for months. Not that I had anything to do with it, but - thanks to a terrified Novell engineer - they FINALLY got a Novell ICS demo box which they plugged into their MS-powered net server. The results from Novell's little ICS box are literally incredibly AMAZING!!!!! Now, my question to Paul, Eric and others is....... Why can't Novell develop a DIRECT to consumer SALES and MARKETING channel - a la Dell - through which they can evangelize this AMAZING technology???????????????????// Is Novell scared of it's own shadow??? Or are they just too dysfunctionally DISTRUSTING of others to go down this direction. The company I'm referring to is located in Draper, UT. I'd be very happy to back the Novell engineer who has the guts to take this story to Eric Schmidt. To me this is a Compaq/Rosen revelation. The inwardly focused, negative energy behind these figurative Novell dams must be smashed to smithereens by someone. The engineer that placed this demo box should be put up on a pedestal. He was THINKING out of the Novell box. Think of others - the customer!!! - he/she risked being fired by placing this fantastic technology which I think HAS a massively bright future on the net today. But Novell's politics still wants to play the Old Boy corporate OEM game, catering to Michael Dell and others. Catering to the small guys??? Heresy!! If you don't get on your Red Robes Eric I'll work up enough lather and energy to get others to do the same. Peace. GO!! Note: On the subject of "change" at Novell, my colleague/friend/partner at the Draper, UT firm also told me "Fred, forget it....they will NEVER change." "Even if they did, it would be 2-3 years past the time they should have anyway and they'd NEVER acknowledge where the original idea/energy came from." Further Note to Paul Fiondella....... Do you care enough about CHANGE to get off your cushy, brown-nosed pontificating position with Eric and some select engineers to take this to Eric?? Or are you just another mirror for what's happening inside Novell - ie. caustically negative, inwardly focused energy that keeps you and Novell in a sidepool of self-absorbed acid OUTSIDE and AWAY from the raging IP Rivers of energy which are driving the net worldwide. Perhaps worse, as long as you can click and control things "your way" - ie. "Novell's way" - you may be comfortable just wanting to continue assuming these inside problems against outside revelations and energies just don't exist.

To: Villemure who wrote (31199)	4/25/2000 4:09:00 PM
From: ToySoldier	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

From NWFusion.... If you own Microsoft stock, then you were a little bit poorer yesterdayas the once high-flying stock dropped some 15%. It is now trading at about half its recent high (Bill Gates can now only afford half of South America). This is more than just a stock dip. This may ultimately signal a shift in the balance of operating systems and applications power. Clearly the drop was due to some short term earnings problems (kind of a first) and the possibility that the government is going to ask that Microsoft be split up. But, more fundamentally, investors may finally be getting clued into the fact that Microsoft is vulnerable to new and old technology. Sun Solaris is giving Windows NT and Windows 2000 a whopping in the high-end e-commerce space, Novell Directory Services and Netscape's directory are still the choice for high-volume applications, AOL is kicking butt in Internet access, and Oracle is still king of the database management system heap. And in the future, Microsoft will have to grapple with all manner of new computing devices, not to mention the steady inexorable rise of Linux. Poor Bill. nwfusion.com