Open Letter from Eric Schmidt
David Coursey, publisher of The Inside Report on Computing, the Internet, and Communications, recently sent an open letter to Novell Chairman/CEO Eric Schmidt asking about the future role of the NetWare brand.
In his analysis, Coursey wrote, "I think NetWare -- promoted as an operating system -- confuses people who think choosing NetWare means somehow not choosing Win95, NT, or Unix. I believe Novell should deemphasize the concept of NetWare as an OS and concentrate on NetWare as a solutions platform." And in posting Schmidt's response, Coursey added that "Eric is probably my favorite big company CEO (Bill is in a class beyond anyone), and I think we're about 90 percent in agreement. If you have stopped watching Novell, it's about time -- maybe a quarter or two early -- to reevaluate your thoughts about the company."
Here, then, Eric Schmidt's Open Letter Response:
Novell Is Relevant Again
Dear David,
As usual, you're right! I'm glad to see you giving so much attention to Novell and NetWare 5 in your recent open letter on coursey.com. I agree with what I take to be your main point: that Novell's business, moving forward, should be focused on extending its platform for network solutions, not just delivering an operating system. Let me explain.
NetWare 5 matters to 70 million Novell customers and businesses everywhere precisely because of its excellence as a platform for network solutions. You're absolutely right, David, that customers have lost interest in where Jimmy Hoffa is buried and what the kernel-level differences are between UNIX System 4 and NT 4. They care, however, about all those solution areas where Novell is the clear leader or strives to be in the future: yes, file and print, but also messaging and collaboration; Internet services; manageability through NDS and related tools like our new Z.E.N. works; and, of course, application development and deployment. (Note: The kernel level differences matter to those of us who need to deliver scalability. We just shouldn't overemphasize them.)
A Shift Toward Solutions
This shift toward a solutions architecture, along with our growing portfolio of products, is driving the transformation now taking place in Novell's business. One of my goals on joining Novell last April was to get new products and solutions to market faster, and we now see a whole new generation of customers taking advantage of our progress in this area.
Let me offer a few examples. A major retailer needs a way to automatically deliver a formatted daily sales report covering 1,000 stores into the E-mail inbox of every executive. Florida's fastest-growing county government wants to add a dozen NT SQL servers to its network without hiring a dozen new administrators to struggle with NT domains. Network managers at a health care chain uses automatic software distribution and desktop management to add an entire new hospital and 500 new PC users to their network--all from a central location with the click of a mouse. What a concept! None of these customers asked us for an operating system. But they all asked us for solutions that weren't practical or even possible with only NT or only UNIX. We tell them that if they want to use NT to run specific applications, that's fine. But to get the most out of their IT investments, they should run their networks on NetWare.
In just the past several months we've shipped GroupWise 5.2, ManageWise 2.5, BorderManager, FastCache, NDS for NT, and Z.E.N works. Combined with NetWare 5, now in its second beta on schedule to ship this summer, these products provide the network solutions platform that makes Novell matter. Both in business networks and the ISP community.
Renewed Developer Interest
Third parties, more than ever, are adding to the strength of our solutions platform. That's why we call our expanded development environment the Open Solutions Architecture. For the first time, we are delivering a consistent set of APIs and tools to enable developers to access NDS and all of our network services. This is an environment that encompasses C++, Java, and Scripting, where you are right to recognize our potential as a server-side development and deployment platform.
It's more than just current big partners like IBM, Oracle, Netscape who will help us move in this direction. We're also looking to hot new startups and niche players, and we've recently established a $50 million Internet Development fund to stimulate the development of Java and Internet applications for NetWare.
Novell Is Relevant Again
So I think we are in agreement, David, that network solutions is the large, unclaimed territory of the IT marketplace where Novell can stake its future. I do not agree with the need to hide NetWare; the brand is well known and the product successful. I also can't agree that customers equate Novell with file and print services, UNIX and NT with servers, and NT with the services where Novell has been the leader. Your own statistics on our continued, robust server sales should be evidence enough that Novell owns the world's largest server base. In fact, the numbers from recent Computer Intelligence reports show the growth in NT sales slowing, as all epidemics eventually do, with NetWare actually regaining market share.
If you mean to imply that Novell needs to accelerate our delivery of solutions other than file or print, or that we need to do more to tell customers about our solutions to their problems, you're correct. And that is exactly what we're doing. Once again, you're on target with your emphasis on network services and solutions. We will deliver this vision in 1998.
Sincerely,
Eric Schmidt |
