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

To: zwolff who wrote (37833)	3/4/2002 8:47:28 AM
From: Costa Kapantais	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

<<NOVL, its prospects and relevancy>> People have been predicting the demise of Novell since the early '90's. The company is still here and has more assets than Enron :), not a bad effort considering the sustained attack from the monopolist for the last 5 years, not many companies have survived. Relevancy????...must be relevant to over over 5000 customers who have signed licencing contracts with Novell (in support of multiple millions of end users)...or do these organisations provide hard earned monies to Novell because they feel sorry for us???? - Point hear is it is a long way from being too late. The missing piece was Stone, Brainshare will be a key turning point, watch and learn....the future awaits! I am personaly buying as much stock as I can at these prices, below cost so not much risk. Costa

To: zwolff who wrote (37833)	3/4/2002 1:13:15 PM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Respond to of 42771

Hello zwolff, I have to admit that Craig is one of the people that was truly enjoyable to work with at Novell. I have often told people that his departure, IMHO, was the beginning of the end for Novell ... they have never since has such a charismatic leader with such a good technical and strategic perspective. I continue to enjoy getting together with him from time to time to discuss and debate the industry and trends. I have to say that I believe that there are a few paragraphs in this post that, IMHO, are going to be the key to Novell's future: There is still a huge mismatch between Cambridge's business model, and Novell's business model, this mismatch is yet to be resolved. Cambridge was a vendor independent consulting firm and Novell was an independent software vendor. Collapsing the two makes no sense. To correct this mismatch, it means even more change and disruption in Cambridge and Provo. Obviously the core business at Cambridge has got to go. This collapse causes a tough internal conflict. What is Novell truly committed to? When organizations have split commitments, they are doomed ... no focus. Things get even uglier. While the core Cambridge Technology business is likely to tank, Messman and Stone are both based in Mass. Nobody seems to want to move to Provo to run the core business. Novell is likely to be more embroiled in its own mess than dealing with market realities. If there is not a strong leadership team ... and I stress team ... that is located in Provo (even with remote leadership in Mass.) then I do not believe that the new objectives will be met. There must be a strong presence of leadership ... I'm not sure about the Cambridge merger, but one thing is sure, Novell needs more than a strategy, they need a charismatic leader to drive that strategy with analysts, business partners and customers. In fact the leader is more important than the strategy. Look at what Steve Jobs has done for Apple. Again ... I don't believe that Novell has had a leader like this since Craig Burton. In my recent research, I would also suggest that they will want more than one ... they will require a team that can generate leadership. (As a side note, my stressing team is related to my memetic research where I have proposed that "team" is the smallest "fault-tolerant" unit of a effective organization. There has to be a minimum of three to have a team. Team allows for changes in people without losing the momentum ... the team creates it, not the individual.) I can't imagine that two guys in Cambridge are going to do much with a bunch of developers in Provo. I believe that Novell management (and I'm guessing, because heaven knows no one at Novell thinks they should let an analyst in on what they're doing) thinks that they're running a consulting and systems integration firm that happens to own some IP that may or may not be useful. Just the reverse of what you think. Who is going to be on the leadership team in Provo? And does Novell understand communications ... the binding element of an organization, and between organizations? Very cool post ... thanks! Scott C. Lemon

To: zwolff who wrote (37833)	3/4/2002 2:52:38 PM
From: Frederick Smart	Respond to of 42771

A Message To Craig Burton..... craigburton.com Frederick - Re: Too little too late? <Picture: blueArrow> 3/4/2002; 1:45:28 PM (reads: 3, responses: 0) Craig: Let's get to the bottom of things. Novell is not a company. Novell is a community of individuals. Period. The "company" aspect simply provides legal cover for individuals operating in the community against outsiders seeking judgment claims and rights against those inside. And as with every community either the individuals are proactively risking, serving, trusting, sharing and helping one another or they are reactively trying to avoid facing the truth behind selfishing helping and serving their own interests. Novell has made a wonderful case study of the hidden costs of disfunctioning communities that are populated with individuals who have a hard time with trust, lack an understanding of the value of risk and therefore fail to receive and share the freedom and energy necessary to create and share anything of lasting value with the rest of the world. Novell's vision has been bankrupt since early 1999 when they put the muzzle of limits and control on Eric Schmidt. I say turn the whole business model upside down and turn the whole thing into ONE open, transparent service model. Give away eDirectory totally and allow it to become the infrastructure for these new, emerging Life Services Infrastructure platforms which will be used by individuals to repatriate their rights and control over their creative authorship of ALL data. And these rights and controls begin and end with the individual securing his or her own identity on a variety of platforms. The technology of the future will be technology that supports, enables and serves this unfolding New World of individually empowered energy, service and freedom. Individuals are the only place to begin and end this discussion. Let the FREEDOM and energy of individuals populate the Directory in a process that has them repatriating their rights to controlling the data they create. It's high time for individuals to exit these Wizard of Oz plantations of corporate, government and institutional claims which seek to define, lable, limit, restrict, own and control the flow of individual energy, light and Love in this world. It's time to repatriate our rights of ownership over the data we create by saying "Click Bye Bye" to these data control models that irrationally claim to own me you and others. The ideas and energy that drive technology begins and ends in the individual mind through the conduit of choice . A New World of more individual freedom is the vision. And the passport to this New World is the empowered individual who begins to see and understand that when it comes to helping and serving others and making this world a better place for others, he/she is the Alpha and the Omega of the future. I trust from where you are standing right now you see this vision and are fast heading down this path. Peace. Fred Smart