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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (13114)	12/10/1998 1:59:00 PM
From: ToySoldier	Respond to of 74651

Take a bow, Eric Schmidt, you're Coop's exec of the year By Charles Cooper, ZDNN December 10, 1998 4:35 AM PT For Bill Gates, the bete noir du jour is undoubtedly David Boies, the lead lawyer for the Justice Department who has been causing the world's richest man no small amount of grief this fall. But looking beyond the day-to-day, Gates' bigger headache is coming from another quarter: Novell -- a company which only a year ago was referred to as yet one more unfortunate roadkill for the Redmondians -- has stormed back to life with the best second act since Lazarus. And for the explanation, look no further than Eric Schmidt. The mother of all turnarounds If you had asked me a year ago whether Novell would be toe-to-toe with Microsoft 12 months later, I would have laughed. This was the mother of turnaround challenges and it was anyone's guess whether there was a light or a train at the end of the tunnel. Schmidt, who had taken over as Novell's CEO a few months earlier, was an interesting choice -- brainy, good contacts, high industry profile. But he could have found cushier jobs, say, as PR spokesman for Saddam Hussein. Why he thought Novell was worth risking health and reputation remains a mystery. After all, this was a company mismanaged into a near death spiral by its longtime boss Ray Noorda. Living in his bizzaro world, Noorda fiddled around with ill-considered forays into spreadsheets and word processing software while Microsoft was improving its NT network software. Bob Frankenberg, Noorda's amiable successor, sold off Novell's ill-considered acquisitions, but he too failed to stanch the red ink or the erosion in the company's share of the network operating system market. This was a company plagued by poor planning and undependable product cycles. At Novell, it was not unknown to hear of one group of researchers suddenly punting a project over to the development crew, keeping their fingers crossed that the result would be a real, workable product. Schmidt's impressive performance Enter Schmidt, who had enjoyed a respectable enough career at Sun Microsystems as Scott McNealy's chief technology guru, but he had no heavy-duty management experience. Suddenly Schmidt was responsible for the whole ball of wax -- from corporate downsizing to the vision thing. The assignment was made even tougher by the evolution of Windows NT's into an application server of choice. With companies keeping their eyes on the bottom line, it made little sense to host both Novell's NetWare and Windows NT, which was increasingly able to handle their file and print server needs. If something was going to go, it was NetWare. But lo and behold, Schmidt successfully chiseled the rust off the system. New products got completed on time with their features. The old way of doing things got chucked and researchers who created new technologies were charged with shepherding their projects through the development process until they reached market. Importantly, the newest version of NetWare beat Microsoft's upcoming version of NT to market, giving Novell at least a six-month grace period to make hay while Microsoft struggled in beta test hell. It was an impressive performance and only Jeff Bezos rates a close second. To be sure, Bezos, Amazon.com's CEO is changing the shape of retail. But I submit that Bezos's brilliant execution of his (admittedly brilliant) business plan was nonetheless less daunting than the challenges facing Schmidt. Unlike Novell, Amazon was squaring off against a lumbering rival. Barnes and Noble may be a superpower in bookselling but it took an awfully long time for senior management to grasp the potential of Internet. (It will be interesting to see how Bezos fares in the coming year as B&N -- fresh off its acquisition of the Ingram Book Group -- makes up for lost time.) That's why Schmidt gets my vote for Executive of the Year. It's a no-brainer.

To: LindyBill who wrote (13114)	12/10/1998 5:36:00 PM
From: Spartex	Respond to of 74651

They reported good numbers again. Seems that since Ellison's been off the boat and back at the ORCL helm things have improved. quote.yahoo.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (13114)	12/10/1998 10:20:00 PM
From: DownSouth	Respond to of 74651

> I have never understood all of the Oracle hype on this thread With all due respect, LindyBill, I don't believe that the dialog about Oracle here is anything but an honest exchange of facts and opinions. Haven't said nor heard any hype.

To: LindyBill who wrote (13114)	12/11/1998 12:33:00 AM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 74651

Well at the risk of being slightly off topic, I was waiting for the Dell low end server commodity box to revolutionize the space... that hasnt happened - Im not sure why. Where is Sql server 7? Is it going to be bundled with NT - thats what we were thinking last summer and at least initially thats why Oracle took a dive. All this DOJ stuff has got me confused as to what msfts plans are now - certainly with regard to bundling things with NT - I think that has been curtailed, has it not? So the DOJ is doing some damage imo, not for the existing product set but for the new lines. Michelle