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: Joe Antol who wrote (19093)	12/14/1997 8:06:00 PM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Respond to of 42771

Hello Joe, I too have thought that Oracle appears to be a good buy, however I have hesitated (and could be lost) because I truely believe that the battle has not even started. The story about NCs is good, but I believe it will take much longer to play out. The article that you posted has some interesting points, however I believe that Novell's play in the middle and server side of Java is a much more likely success than the desktop side. The article is misleading because it starts by talking about "home" penetration of computers. This has no relation to business penetration. They then talk about Total Cost of Ownership (TOC) and try to use business figures ... which have no relation to the home market. In my opinion, the business market for Java will be limited to Java on Windows for the forseeable future. My reasoning is: 1. 99.x% of all companies I talk to are running Windows applications on Windows workstations. 2. Until all applications that a business user runs are rewritten for Java a company will not convert. Businesses will not have every employee using two machines. So they will run Java applications, with their Windows applications, on Windows desktops. I think it will be several years before we see Java business applications that equal or exceed the current apps we use. As an example, try and even find a good high-performance, up to date, leading edge browser written in Java! HotJava is a joke ... 3. Until all legacy data, and file formats, are supported by Java applications a company will not convert. Again, this will cause the end-user to run the older applications ... on Windows. If the Java users can not transition to an NC transparently then the cost will be too high. Is there a Java wordprocessor that supports Microsoft Word format yet? Some new verticle applications will be developed in Java, for specific purposes such as POS etc., and NCs might make sense here. Basic repetitive applications ... I do believe that companies should work to invest in this transition however, because once a company has invested in converting all of the applications, used by their users, to Java they will have opened up the "freedom to choose" what they run these Java applications on ... which still might be Windows. ;-( On the server side, I believe that the development of middle-ware or back-end business software, using standards like CORBA, will allow any desktop to have access and use these distributed services. This means that Novell can support Windows, Java, NCs, or any client that is built around these evolving technologies. And with properly architected software we can even provide a nice migration ... I think Larry is going to have his hands full trying to make the NC fly ... we can try and help, but it will take a while! Scott C. Lemon