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

To: EPS who wrote (23487)	8/15/1998 6:07:00 PM
From: DJBEINO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Chairman and chief executive Eric Schmidt's place in Novell lore will face its toughest test in 1998. NetWare 5 may be Novell Inc.'s last gasp, but the company, which has been criticized for its weak marketing efforts in the past, is pulling out all the stops. The Orem, Utah-based Novell had its executives crisscrossing the country preaching the benefits of Novell Directory Services and the channel. Days after its recent announcement of NetWare 5's ship date, Novell kicked off a major advertising and direct-mail campaign to encourage registration for PartnerNet, its new channel partner program, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The program is expected to get rolling by the end of October. It is designed to play up the benefits of PartnerNet, which will include training, discounted support, free software and exclusive product information to more than 25,000 resellers, consultants, developers, OEMs, NSPs and ISPs. ---

To: EPS who wrote (23487)	8/15/1998 6:08:00 PM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 42771

NetWare 5.0: Ho Hum -- Novell intros latest OS with little fanfare Ellis Booker Novell's announcement last week of a Sept. 20 ship date and pricing for the latest version of its flagship NetWare operating system provided few surprises. Considering the strategic importance of NetWare 5.0-the company has an installed base of 4 million NetWare servers-No-vell's teleconference to announce the product lacked fanfare. Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt did not participate. Pricing for the product increased slightly. A starter, five-user version will cost $1,195, an increase of $100. Migration Plans The fact that Novell will adopt a variety of Internet and Web technologies into the newest version of its network operating system was welcomed by current Novell customers, although Novell has been telegraphing these plans for more than a year. "As an established Novell customer, we'll migrate to 5.0 eventually but not immediately," said Lee Roth, LAN manager at Southwest Airlines. "It'll be natural to upgrade." It also seems clear, however, that NetWare 5.0 will not win back customers Novell has lost over the past few years to Windows NT. NetWare's market share fell 9 percent from 1996 to 1997, and new unit shipments of Windows NT now outpace NetWare, according to industry researchers. "Broadly, we're migrating to NT," said Arthur Heigl, director of administrative computing at Johns Hopkins University. At the moment, Heigl's department still runs NetWare, but he intends for it to become an NT shop within two years. "They are too late for us. A couple of years ago, I had misadventures when we moved to NetWare 4.0," he added. Meanwhile, financial analysts acknowledged that Novell's cost-cutting moves have paid off, but they said it is still unclear how the company will return to growth mode. "They're credible again, but what's the long-term growth story?" asked Mary McCaffrey, an analyst at BT Alex Brown. Although she noted that No-vell's stock barely moved on news of NetWare 5.0's ship date, McCaffrey did say she is optimistic about the ancillary products Novell has been releasing for caching, security and network management. Many of these products are tied to Novell Directory Services (NDS), its directory infrastructure. NDS' long-term prospects have improved as Microsoft has delayed the commercial ship date of Windows NT 5.0, which will include a new directory service known as Active Directory. Currently, Windows NT 5.0 is not expected until the middle of next year. techweb.com