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

To: Joe Antol who wrote (19514)	1/9/1998 11:36:00 AM
From: Spartex	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Joe: (Off Topic) Your welcome, and sorry that you are caught in the current downdraft here. I mentioned my reservation on the ORCL site about 3 weeks ago if you may have caught my thought too. Early Jan appeared to be a suckers rally if I'm correct. Meanwhile, do you or anyone else know what the existing relationship NOVL has with ATT? I remember reading something about it a while back and forget the content. They would be a very solid partner to secure with if there's some meat to the relationship for NOVL. Thanks.....Quad-K

To: Joe Antol who wrote (19514)	1/10/1998 10:48:00 AM
From: Roger Mariner	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Joe, about Larry..... He's in Las Vegas, where else? He's trumpeting the NC. news.com <Ellison, a member of the Cupertino, California, executive board, again reiterated Apple's plans to introduce an NC later this year, giving audience members a few new details about the device. .... As for the future of such devices, Oracle subsidiary Network Computer Incorporated is working to get its software used in the cable industry's next-generation digital set-top boxes, which in Oracle's vision are NCs for the home.> For what it's worth, I think it's a bit strange that Larry would be pumping up a product from a competing company, which Apple is to Oracle's NCI division. Joe, Oracle has a lot vested in the NC. If you visit Oracle's web site, their latest RDBMS release, Oracle 8, is being sold as the database for the Network Computer. Guess what? Corporations aren't buying the NCs, and Oracle has fired all of its NC corporate marketing folks. So, Oracle is left with Oracle 8, the database for the consumer Network Computer, right? Think about it. They have positioned a long anticipated release on hardware that is not being accepted. In addition, they released Oracle 8, and killed Sedona, which was the buggy OO development environment for Oracle (after spending some $20 million on the project). In summary, Oracle 8's marketing strategy is somewhat nebulous, would you agree? A fantastic product though, but no development tools to really take advantage of it. And it's still being touted as the DB for NCs. People are taking closer looks at Microsoft's SQL Server on the low end, and at IBM's DB2 on the high end, which is getting fantastic reviews in the database world. Leaves Oracle in a strange position. Besides, if Oracle can turn this mess around, then it will be the second time and one for the history books in the software world. Please don't misunderstand me. I adore Oracle, I really do. It's the one company that has consistently made me money up until about a year ago when I curtailed my investments. I believe that the markets need some reassurance that Oracle has a strong strategy that will make it money and continue the fantastic revenue and earnings growth that investors have come to expect. But what has this to do with Novell? Who knows. Maybe a comparison of how software companies transition will be written in years to come. A few years ago, many people thought that Oracle would buy Novell. I retired from predicting Novell's future a long time ago, but I wish them the best of luck. It will still be a giant even if revenues continue their decline. The truth is, success has a hundred fathers and failure is an orphan, and even silent Novell boosters would rather not admit their support publicly.