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

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (21141)	3/16/1998 10:55:00 AM
From: ToySoldier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Paul, You have not read my posting completely or just did not understand what I was saying. So lets clarify your responses: First of all, IBM does have a desktop operating system contrary to your belief. Its call OS/2 Warp. In fact it is a very robust desktop operating system that out performs Win95 and has more business critical features built in than Win95. Unfortunately (Don take note again) OS/2 Warp has lost the the marketing war - especially in the desktop. We had one client that decided 4 years ago to be leading edge and put OS/2 on all the desktops. Last year the converted to Win95 and NT workstations. The second point you clearly missed in what I was saying related to what parts of IBM's business would be at risk for IBM. AT NO POINT did I say the IBM hardware workstation or server sales would be at risk by relying on Win95 or NT. IBM's hardware sales will gladly operate with any intel based operating system, be it Win95, NT, NetWare, SCO Unix, DOS, Lantastic, etc. Therefore, your further point about HP is moot. To restate what I really did say: IBM's application software and tools would be at risk if they fully relied on Microsoft's operating system (and for all the reasons I mentioned in my previous postings). They will currently work with NT but only because the market dictates that IBM cannot ignore them. Believe me that if IBM could rely on another operating system with market potential that either they have full control of (OS/2) or that will follow their similar strategic directions like Java and CORBA (UNIX and NetWare) they will. So Paul, my point still stands. Make a more valid counter-point that directly addresses what I was saying. Don... Just for you, I searched through my access to Gartner Group regarding OS/2 and its future. Here is a direct Gartner Group quote from a 1996 article on OS/2 future in the industry: "OS/2 Warp Server. OS/2 is solid technology that has already lost the marketing war with Microsoft. While it is difficult for IBM to concede anything to Microsoft, OS/2 will likely receive less R&D every year through 2000, focusing more on niche markets where it will remain successful. OS/2 will effectively be nonstrategic to IBM by 2000 (0.7 probability)." I and the article fully agree with you that OS/2 Warp has "solid technology" but please believe me, OS/2 has no future in most people's opinions. Gartner says in the quote that OS/2 will remain succesful in the niche markets. Since that writing, even these niche markets are dwindling (banking/finance applications). As for Tivoli. I have had some training on it and our comapny is implementing it world-wide as our "Enterprise Manager". Very good future for it. Just as a little education though, Tivoli and Novell's ManageWise are two different classes of System Management tools. Tivoli is referred to as an "Enterprise Manager". ManageWise is referred to as a "World Level Manager". ManageWise and other world level managers are used more so to manage limited scope environments (some companies do actually use these type of managers for their entire management suite though). These Managers typically report to Enterprise Managers. We use both managers in our multitude of I.T. environments. Novell has made a commitment though with CA to integrate ManageWise tightly with Tivoli's competitor - Unicenter. (ahhh - but I ramble here - so I shall stop) Don, if you really want to get a good understanding and/or summary of how the industry players and products interact - you should consider subscribing to an industry analyst like Gartner Group. In fact, for anyone on this board that has serious plans to focus on investing in the tech stocks and is not technically savvy, I would strongly recommend this idea. These analytical companies do a fairly good job of summarizing whats happening in the industry, preduicting future activities, and do it with very little bias. Anyways, I must be off to a client site all day today, so I'll catch up with all your postings later on today. ToySoldier

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (21141)	3/17/1998 9:45:00 PM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello Paul, You stated: > IBM has no desktop OS, they use WinXX. Does that stop them from > selling computers? Similarly when they want to sell a department > level server do they care which NOS goes on it? No ... my current analysis says that they don't care - as long as it runs Java! Mark my word that they fully recognize the ability to "out abstract" Microsoft with Java ... > IBM has already made the decision to go with NT. It was quoted here > most recently by me and some time ago by Joe. So what is the logic > of your argument, that IBM should give up server sales to protect > OS2? They aren't going with NT ... they are working to "love it to death" ... they recognize the true power of Java ... > I don't think so. Most OS/2 customers that I have spoken with have been influenced to start migration to Java on OS/2 ... it's just becoming a platform for the JVM. I don't think that IBM has long term goals with OS/2 IMHO. > Incidentally, name the OS the HP sells? Or does HP care as long as > it moves boxes. Move boxes ... they are very much moving hardware ... IMHO. Scott C. Lemon