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

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (18831)	12/1/1997 11:37:00 PM
From: Joe Antol	Respond to of 42771

Good post Fred. You "are" feisty (and "perceptive" too...) <smile>. They could use you at the palace. Actually, you should be doing the PR (I mean that sincerely)... at least you show some "fire in the belly". Regards, Joe...

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (18831)	12/2/1997 12:07:00 AM
From: Ben Antanaitis	Respond to of 42771

ALL- 12/01/97 EZ-PnF, point and figure chart for NOVL at: pipeline.com Ben A.

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (18831)	12/2/1997 12:41:00 AM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Yep Fred, I guess everyone for the last five years or so got in at the wrong time...and you picked it. We'll see, but you sound like potentially a next generation whiner. Good luck to you. sf

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (18831)	12/2/1997 1:24:00 AM
From: BP Ritchie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Wow! ... Fredrick, this makes me feel a lot better! I would like to point out a few items from your post and comment on them though, any Novell employees (esp Marketing/Sales folk) that can help us understand are much more than welcome to join in ... I'll repeat my offer of anonymity if you want to email me privately to 'straighten me out' again (they've done it before, folks ... and they were right). > The important thing for me is that Schmidt, from what I am hearing from sources in the field is having a significant impact on breaking down the fence. The have's and the have'nots in Novell's world are moving toward the middle as an IP-centric networking world with exploding bandwidth soon - very quickly takes us all for a huge ride. < Yep, completely right! ... He's fixed the technolgy plans, and re-pointed the product plans ... great work! > Why can't people wake up and realize is NOT ABOUT NT!!! It's all about IP, stupid. The network platforms that open up and integrate with emerging Java-applications that feed into this will thrive. I happen to think Novell is right on track. Schmidt picked his shot and it will be one big home run. A Java-on-the-server application platform that's rich, secure and native IP compatible - and that's just for starters. < Well, not complete agreement here. The market opportunity isn't just restricted to IP either, it's much bigger ... it's really any and all forms of digital information that can be used/referenced/transmitted to any form of processor that does not have a local copy of the data/object. IP (or TCP/IP) isn't much more than Revision 0 of the Public International Digital Network that the world is now busily building ... the architecture and planning will be done later. And Java-on-the-server is the next significant application opportunity ... probably, but even if it's not the solution accepted by the market, the opportunity remains and Novell is much better positioned than MSFT (or anyone else) to meet the customer requirement. > The whiners on this thread crying about NT taking over the world are singing last years blues. It's like hanging out on South Michigan Avenue to where it becomes a habit. I love that music too, but lets come to grips with the massive paradigm shift toward networking technologies that underway. A completely different tune is being sung out there and none of notes are hitting this thread. < Well, if you go back in time to when I first started posting on this thread ... this is pretty much what I said then, and still believe is true. I believe the market opportunity is at least as big as the total PC Hardware & Software Market from 1982 until present time ... and that Novell is better postioned than all other vendors to take advantage of this opportunity. My concerns remain though ... do the potential buyers know? ... seems like they don't! That's a simple problem to fix, Novell doesn't seem to be working of fixing it either! ... Oh, and one more difficult item ... what Novell products can the average PC user buy that will enable participation in this amazing developing Network of riches? ... Where can these products be bought? MSFT doesn't have any products that are capable of delivering most of the benefits people are being lead to expect from this amazing new opportunity ... doesn't seem to stop them from advertising that they do ... ever heard 'Where do you want to go today?' MSFT is selling people what they want to buy today ... then trying to make it work later. Novell is trying figure out what people should buy, building it today and expecting people to understand the difference, save their money now and wait until they can buy Novell's products ... I don't think this approach is nearly as effective as MSFT's practice. All that Novell has to do is to 'educate' prospective customers, get their commitments early (take the money before they give it to MSFT) and then keep their (most of) promises ... easy to say, sometimes hard to do. But the essence of the effort is usually called 'Marketing' ... the folks at Novell behave as if they think that a Marketing assignment is punishment for engineers that mess up. So, from a 'big picture' perspective we're in-synch ... it's just that I'm getting a bit impatient with waiting for Novell to actually start collecting revenue ... bags of it, big bags! Maybe they're just too modest to be sales people?

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (18831)	12/2/1997 1:39:00 PM
From: vinod Khurana	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Fred:<<Why can't people wake up and realize is NOT ABOUT NT!!>> Now all NOVL has to do is convince its major customers without telling them they are stupid. Start by telling Ford and MCI who are converting to NT to switch back. Provide an incentive and go out all war with MSFT if need be. No use just standing there watching and waiting for the final shoe to drop. Every IT person knows that NT is not better in terms of stability or functionality. It is the integration of the desktop with the server O/S that makes the case to standardize on one product very appealing...besides the fact that it is from MSFT. NOVL has to change the mindset. That is the biggest challenge they face. In my opinion, NOVL on its own can not undo the blunders of the past. They need to tie the knot with a stonger company who can assert their own message with their logo. In other words, time for the NOVL logo to retire. User loyality is not going to help either. Look at the affect on Apple Computer. Sure they have some loyal customers but it has done didly squat for the company. NOVL is in no better shape. What we need is an effort by NOVL to have its large customers migrate those NetWare 3.x servers to NetWare 4.x. Wait to long and NT will be crawling all over the place. NOVL needs to bundle some free software with its basic NetWare O/S. Free software like Managewise and Groupwise and a reduction in upgrade prices from NetWare 3.x. Why can they not learn from MSFT bundling Win 95 with Internet explorer ? It is sure beating the h*ll out of Netscape. NOVL marketing is still not upto speed. The future regarding JAVA is unclear. V.K