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

To: Scott C. Lemon who wrote (42321)	6/26/2006 9:02:24 PM
From: Paul Fiondella	Respond to of 42771

Scott, the one thing Messman's firing means is that the outside institutional investors that bought into the company like we never saw before the LINUX purchase, now have the power to remove a non-functioning CEO. They will give the new guy a limited amount of time (unlike the MESSman) to carry out the old strategy and then they will sell the company if he fails to execute. And executing on a strategy that doesn't seem to understand what the LINUX community is all about, as you so aptly point out, is pretty impossible. So the institutional investors will probably cut Novell up into unrecognizable pieces with IBM finding a way to put the strategic LINUX piece into better hands. An investment in NOVL is basically a bet on a buy-out. Barring a quarter that shows a complete collapse the current CEO might get a 4 quarters to show bottom line progress. I don't think the stock will hold up under the gun of quarterly performance. I don't even see it as a buy at $5 a share. The problem with the price of a buy-out is that the preferred shares execute at too high a price so there is no money in a buyout for the institutional investors below that $11 price and no one that will buy Novell for that kind of money. IT's going to be a shell. Your friends in Provo should look for other employment. I have no idea what they will do with the LINUX people. The IBMers must be wringing their hands. It looks like Balmer beat them badly again!!! And Bill is out there saving the world with Warren Buffet's money. I hope Bill doesn't die of colon cancer now that he is finally doing something worthwhile with his human existence.