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

To: E_K_S who wrote (18941)	12/5/1997 9:50:00 PM
From: Paul Fiondella	Respond to of 42771

The "New" Novell --- whaaa Nothing has changed with this company (sorry Ghassan). Its biggest market is its own existing customers. Most of the still willing buyers are in the enterprise. The unwilling 3.X ers have gone to NT and aren't coming back. So these two factors are key (1) Novell sells primarily to its existing base (2) Novell sells to the enterprise customer that values software that works flawlessly. Now take MSFT. It sells a lot of junk. But Novell is too timid to hype the fact that its opponent sells a junk watch against Novell's low priced Rolex. They never jump on it. Now at the low end of the server market, where it doesn't matter if the server crashes occasionally, junk is good enough. I don't wear a Rolex when I'm pulling weeds in the garden. This message never got across to Novell. I and others would buy a piece of "junk" for a five user network that wasn't performing a critical task (say running a bunch of real estate queries from a relatively static DB). So this market is locked by MSFT because Novell cannot do the most elementary marketing exercise of segmenting markets and addressing specific products to each one. How many flavors of NT are out there!!! and all addressed to market segments. Now let's take the legendary 40% solution. Either Novell develops a product for the low end market and finally competes in the application server market(why not sell MOAB with some rare bugs but with a superior JAVA to the low end but sooner) or they get the hell out of the low end business period!!!! Go for the enterprise, dump the low end, dump the channel, dump another 1000 employees and raise the price for the product and go for the Rolex market. Bring in chain saw Al, or at least the BOD that supports him (rated among the top 25 in the country) and cut cut cut. That's not the Novell we know and love. The slow death: This is the current scenario. Delay MOAB because Win NT 5.0 is delayed and cross your fingers that NT 5.0 doesn't do to your enterprise market what NT 4.0 did to your small server market. I think I got enough of this company.

To: E_K_S who wrote (18941)	12/6/1997 1:04:00 PM
From: E_K_S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

New products will have "directory applications" with cross platform support. Perhaps we will see the 'new' marketing program highlight these products in the next few months. Let's hope they add significant revenue to replace the 'lost' revenues from NetWare 3.1 licenses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ÿCEO promises Novell directory apps December 6, 1997 2:35 AM EST Computer Reseller News, December 01, 1997 By: Steven Burke Las Vegas -- Novell Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the company will deliver a new wave of Windows NT- and NetWare-based directory applications over the next six months. Schmidt, speaking at the Comdex/Fall computer show, said the new applications will deliver "value on top of the directory." "I spent a lot of time talking about how life is better if you have a directory," said Schmidt, appointed earlier this year to run the Orem, Utah-based software company. "Many customers know this, but they don't know why they buy a directory," Schmidt said. "Customers don't buy directories; they buy applications." Schmidt would not name specific applications, but he did say they all will be directory-focused and multiplatform. Some of the applications will be Java-based, he said. "There is a set of uses of Java that are appropriate today and a set of uses that are inappropriate," Schmidt said. The ramp-up and transition to Java will be completed in the next year, he said. The directory-centric Internet space is a huge new opportunity for VARs, he said. A number of channel partners have "correctly figured out that the hardest part of networking is people-centric," said Schmidt. "The talent that is required to put together these kinds of solutions [is significant]. It's not Lego, unfortunately." Copyright (c) 1997 CMP Media Inc.Copyright 1997 CMP Publications, Inc. ====================================================================== IMO it still looks like an uphill climb to get those revenues stabilized at the $800 million level for FY 1998. EKS

To: E_K_S who wrote (18941)	12/8/1997 9:27:00 AM
From: BP Ritchie	Respond to of 42771

Thanks Eric! ... it is encouraging to see reports like this in print. But, this strategy is not 'new' it's pretty much what we heard from Eric Schmidt within a month of his start ... just has some additional detail flushed out now, and some product is starting to ship (both beta, and some product content) ... so, it is good news that the press does seem to finally be coming around to at least understand Novell's technology capability. IMHO ... from a technology perspective this is much better than most of the competitive offerings ... from a marketing perspective, too many of the most important people (the ones that make buying decisions) still don't seem to believe that Novell should be seriously considered ... still seems pretty easy to fix, still seems like they (Novell mgmnt) don't see this marketing objective as important ... and most distressing to me, they don't seem to have a really good handle on what they are going to sell, to who, when, and how. If they have this figured out properly ... we could probably expect a tripling of top line revenues, but it's either not done properly yet or they are still keeping it a secret. The John C. Dvorak column that mentioned Novell as being capable of driving the Gigabit Ethernet, while saying that NT cannot cope with the speed requirements was a nice 'little' plum ... but much more can and should be done along these lines ... doesn't seem to be anyone at Novell actively working on this kind of marketing though! Dvorak has a pretty good reputation in the business ... both for honesty and the ability to sort out the hype from important information. If I was running the marketing programs at Novell ... Dvorak & about a dozen others with similar backgrounds and reputations would be getting lots of 'good information' about both Novell's products, and MSFT's shortcomings ... including free 'evaluation' copies of all products. And ... every ISP in the world would have a free '45 day' copy of BorderManager by now ... wonder how many actually got them? On a different topic ... it seems to me that the Novell folk are much more knowledgeable about Lucent's technologies than the current business model indicates that is required ... makes me wonder if they are exploring some kind of 'partnership' with Lucent ... have you got any insights into what might happen if Lucent were to buy Novell, or Novell would try to buy Lucent? I still think the best deal for all would be an Intel/Novell merger ... and did think it was at least a 50% possibility earlier this year, seems to have been moved to the 'back burner' now though.