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

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (18823)	12/1/1997 6:33:00 PM
From: BP Ritchie	Respond to of 42771

Are you the same Fredrick Smart that thought this thread was 'prematurely' bullish on Novell just a little while ago? BTW ... I agree with most of your points in this post. I'm still concerned about Novell though ... and don't think the management is adequately concerned about shareholder's value (mostly stock price). I believe that if Eric Schmidt put 1/2 the effort into improving the stock price that he put into sorting out the product and technical plans that the price would be significantly higher than it is now. If he was buying shares with his own money, I would feel a lot more comfortable about his intentions to look out for my best interests as a shareholder. I think it is a serious mistake for a senior management to treat their shareholders with contempt ... and Novell seems to be close to that description. They can and should do better for us. I don't think we will have to wait for more years to get a decent return on our investments ... we'll probably see it sometime in the next year, but I think it would be better for the management at Novell to start driving that return on investment themselves instead of waiting for it to be done to them.

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (18823)	12/1/1997 7:27:00 PM
From: Dieter Koerner	Respond to of 42771

Hi Frederick, Nice to see an upbeat post once in a while. Dr. Schmidt made some change of management in the sales area, but it looks like they have a leash around their neck which is held by the old Board of Directors. I hope he will address this matter soon and save the stockholders the 10K weekly expense of the one board member. To bad that now most everything is sold with hype (MFST) and not facts. Today the rule is maketing, marketing, marketing. Hello, NOVL, do you hear?. Blow the horn, you have the facts, now market, market, market!!! Regards, Dieter

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (18823)	12/1/1997 9:23:00 PM
From: Joe Antol	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hi Fred. PMFJI. I don't want to start a pssing match cause, if it goes into the 6's (like I think it will), I'll probably get back in long again just for the eventual carving up. In any event, you said: <<<<<< They are breaking tradition by getting products out the door, on-time will good reviews and feedback. The feedback I'm getting from beta users over their recent IP-compatible MOAB release is fantastic. And the offerings from Novonyx are very attractive and compelling. >>>>>>>> If you read the two articles DJBEINO posted upthread (current), they headlines were nice, "but" the the content wasn't too nice. Here's the one on MOAB. Unless the guy writing the article is totally off base and doesn't see the same feedback you see. I see this as something Novell's got a problem with, yes/no? <<<<<<<<<<<< ****(HERE'S THE GOOD PART)**** User loyalty buoys NetWare Customers claim Novell's NOS is still indispensable for file, print services By Erin Callaway, PC Week Online 12.01.97 10:00 am ET NetWare users, having kept the faith this long, aren't about to desert the tribe this close to Moab, the next release of Novell Inc.'s network operating system. They say that NetWare still provides indispensable file and print services and they can integrate Windows NT as an application server without abandoning NetWare. This user loyalty may be borne out in the positive financial results Novell posted in the most recent quarter. Novell reported a surprisingly strong profit of $7 million, or 2 cents per share, on sales of about $270 million in its fourth quarter ended Oct. 31. In the previous quarter, the Orem, Utah, company lost $122 million on $90 million in sales, including a restructuring charge of $55 million. For fiscal year 1997, the company posted a net loss of $78 million, or 22 cents per share, on sales of $1 billion. "I'm pleased to report that demand for our products came back from our entire distribution channel," Novell CEO Eric Schmidt said in a release. *****(NOW COMES THE "BAD" PART)******* But users' patience has been tested by Novell's long development cycle leading to Moab. Most are still yearning for a glimpse of the release. The closest Randy Merrill, who is systems manager for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the district of Arizona, has gotten to Moab was when a Novell engineer talked about the product at his NetWare User Group's conference last month in Phoenix. And Ralph Davis, business systems manager for Fischer Homes, in Tell City, Ind., so far has been able to learn about the system only through word of mouth. "I would ... like to have a little bit better idea about what Moab is supposed to be doing," Davis said. "One of the things that happens when you don't get that is you begin to wonder if [Novell] knows what it is supposed to be doing." One of the things Novell is doing is adding native IP to NetWare in Moab. This will eliminate NetWare's dependency on IPX, the native NetWare LAN communications protocol. "As much as IPX has been a very useful thing, it is an idea whose time has come and gone," said Josh Turiel, president of the Boston NetWare User Group. "It's about time Novell rebuilt their system to be IP-centric because that's the direction the world has gone." Fred DeCosta, network manager at Delta Dental Plan of Massachusetts, in Medford, has stuck with NetWare because he's found that it isn't an either/or proposition with NetWare and Windows NT. "Integrating the two platforms hasn't been as difficult as one might think. The integration tools from both [Microsoft Corp. and Novell] have worked very well," said DeCosta. He relies on NetWare for print and file services on his 350-node network, but uses three NT application servers. **(AND HERE'S THE "UGLY" PART)******* Chuck Stuettgen, network manager at John L. Wortham & Son LLP, in Houston, is committed to staying with NetWare for print and file services, but was recently forced to replace the Novell Web server he was using to run the insurance company's intranet with an NT application server because the application was available only on NT. Merrill also had to "give in" and purchase an NT application server so he could deploy an NT-based bankruptcy court application. He thinks Novell would be wise to deliver Moab as soon as possible. "Hopefully, they won't push back the [delivery] date. I think that will only hurt them," Merrill said. <<<<<<<<<<< ???????? You tell me. Regards, Joe...

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (18823)	12/1/1997 9:34:00 PM
From: Don Earl	Respond to of 42771

Hi Frederick, I agree with a great deal of what you're saying. I'm not a technical person but from everything that I've been able to dig up over the past 8 months, Novell either has the better product or at least something that they should be able to be market on an equal footing with anything else out there. There is a lot of difference in the sentiment that goes into selling into a rally and the selling that occurs on bottoms. Although I was ahead of the high by a few days, my exit point was at the high end of recent moving averages at the time, with stoachastics at over 90%. A good percentage bet most days. When insider sales got to the point where I had almost as much stock as some of the executives in the company, I figured to hell with it. At this point the puts I own represents slightly more stock than the high point of my long positions. This bugs me in a way that is kind of hard to describe, but this is about making money, not about some kind of misplaced loyalty in a company where even the insiders don't want to own the stock. I tend to trade short term trends, which is a lot different than investing. I get too cranky when I get way behind and have to throw more money at a bad investment to hit a break even target. I have a great deal of respect for everyone on this thread. The things I've learned here almost justify the aggravation of sitting on a loss most of the time I owned NOVL. For those with a longer term perspective and a greater tolerance for riding out the ups and downs, I wish you success. I don't deny the possibility of a turn around but the clock is ticking and I still haven't seen the things that need to take place before it can happen. IMO it will take Novell at least 6 months to put together the kind of revenue that would suggest a change in direction. Even then, they would have to be on the verge of implementing a very solid marketing strategy in order to make anything happen in that short a time span. I may end up long again but it won't be at current levels. Regards, Don