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

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (34322)	10/16/2000 12:12:39 PM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 42771

Frederick - for what it's worth (maybe not much) here are my comments. First, to answer your question about why I bought NOVL, and why I sold. I bought because I liked the vision that Schmidt proposed, liked the products in the pipeline, and saw a real chance for NOVL to re-invent itself and become valued as a nimble new age company. I sold when I did not see follow through on that promise, but I had no idea that the value would drop as it has. I purchased starting in early march of 1999 and I sold the last of my position in late January of this year. I had about a 60% gain. Eric Schmidt is smart, visionary and well connected, and I think he got the "plan" for NOVL right. However, he seems completely ineffective as a CEO and at the mercy of internal politics at NOVL. My sense on Stewart Nelson is that he is very adept at playing the internal game at NOVL. I would expect a guy with his operational charter to have focused on delivery of the business, and that clearly has not happened. I have heard various opinions on what is happening internally, on the merits of some of the diversification plans and restructuring proposals, and on what the real plans are going forward, but the opinions are as diverse as the number of people willing to discuss it. I don't know Nelson personally and so I can only judge by performance. On that basis his work has been less than satisfactory.