Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (18622)	11/22/1997 9:39:00 PM
From: Don Earl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hi Paul, I agree that MOAB is not going to be a quick fix answer but I do think the release will move the market. I also agree that the small business market is where Novell needs to focus their attention and marketing. It was a very short time after setting up my first computer that I knew about NT. It sounded like something that might be better than what I already had, so I looked at the information on it. I found out it was more of a business thing and forgot about it. If I had a small business or was thinking about starting one, that would be the first thing that would come to mind. As I recall Novell at it's peak, was doing less than $2 billion a year. Also, as I recall Microsoft is selling over $4 billion a year on NT alone. That doesn't mean that Microsoft is stealing all Novells business. It means that in 14 years of business, Novells marketing left that much virgin territory untouched. Change of subject....I found this in my e-mail today. It looks like Comdex went well. No help for this quarter but it might shake something loose for Q1. >>> LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, U.S.A., 1997 NOV 21 (NB) -- By Craig Menefee, Newsbytes. Novell Inc. [NASDAQ:NOVL] had five days to build what the firm decided to name "Comdex IntraNet - Novell Connecting Points." The network had to provide Internet connections for as many as 250,000 users during the Las Vegas Comdex/Fall '97 show. Just to check it out, Newsbytes used the Novell network to access the Internet and do a bit of surfing at about 5:00 p.m., a time when small ISPs all over the land are sending their users busy signals. A NetScape Internet browser popped up as the connection was made almost instantly. There were dozens of other users lined up at the long bank of terminals at the same time. There was no discernible network crawl. Novell set up four separate terminal locations, each consisting of about 300 Internet-linked Compaq workstations and servers. Bay Networks provided the hubs and switches for 24-hour reliable connections. It was a textbook example of off-the-shelf engineering. Originally, Novell officials had anticipated the show's network users to send out about one million messages a day from the show's four central locations. It turned out to be a lot more. Novell's chief executive officer, Dr. Eric Schmidt, says the network wound up supporting around 1.85 million hits a day, not the one million expected. Crowed Schmidt, in his Wednesday keynote address: "And we did it in only five days!" The network, administered from the main lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center, had Novell employees on hand to guide users who asked for help. But for the most part, they weren't needed. The system had a quality of background invisibility that Cisco's John Chambers has called a hallmark of good network design. "If you look at the schematic for a large network, it is incredibly complex," observed Chambers in his own keynote Tuesday. "Only an engineer could look at it and get all excited and say, that's cool!" Giving credit where it is certainly due, the Novell products used to make the connections worked smoothly. They included GroupWise running on IntranetWare, powering Directory Services for security and administration. A subsystem called BorderManager managed access to the Internet. In a skit during Schmidt's keynote address, an IT (information technology) technician set up a directory-managed network connection for a mock Novell CEO, who promptly discovered he had been blocked from accessing the Playboy Channel. Newsbytes did not think to try surfing to Playboy but the system did handle e-mail and surfing to various online news sources flawlessly. More information on Novell and its approach to networking is available on the World Wide Web at novell.com . Reported by Newsbytes News Network: newsbytes.com >>> Regards, Don