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

To: Fairways9 who wrote (18602)	11/20/1997 9:42:00 PM
From: Don Earl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hi Marc, I understand what you're saying but even logical people are still people, and people need to know about products and they need to be reminded constantly. I'll give you an example: I worked in sales for 20 years and one company I worked for had a good quality product that was considerably less expensive than anywhere else in town. They did almost no advertising but when new customers did come into the store they were very pleased with the product, the price and the service. The company figured they could save money on advertising by having the salespeople contact existing customers several times a month by phone or mail. Unfortunately it wasn't a product that the average person would buy, in most cases, more than once a year. The company had a very loyal and happy customer base but very little new business. Sales were slow, except for about twice a year when we would mail out a special invitation to our customer base offering huge discounts for a short period of time. These sales were not offered to the general public and generated no new business. One day another company with a similar but much more expensive product moved in across the street. You couldn't turn on the TV without getting hammered with their commercials. A year later the company I worked for closed their doors. Does any of this sound familiar? The company I worked for could have launched a similar ad campaign and turned the business on a dime any time up until the last few months. More than likely they could have shut down the competition all together. They had every advantage except marketing. Every sales person in the company begged management for advertising support to draw in new business. Management would just tell us to spend more time on the phone calling our existing customers, while the competition ate into our customer base with superior marketing. Does any of that sound familiar? There isn't a single predator working in Novell management and there never will be. Sheep do not invite wolves to dinner. Anyone that was really capable of doing what needs to be done would be far too dangerous to have around. When asked what his favorite vegetable is, Schmidt should have said "Bill Gates" not "french fries". Happiness is being at the top of the food chain. Regards, Don