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

To: JakeStraw who wrote (25346)	2/8/1999 5:31:00 PM
From: Spartex	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Novell Reborn CEO Eric Schmidt and a timely directory strategy will propel the company back to prominence. By SUSAN BREIDENBACH Network World, 02/08/99 Directory-enabled networking will define computing in the 21st century, and Novell has once again staked out a position in the forefront of a major technology movement. This time, the company appears poised to seize the day instead of giving ground. nwfusion.com Great Article!

To: JakeStraw who wrote (25346)	2/8/1999 5:37:00 PM
From: Villemure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Please find this story at: nwfusion.com Novell Reborn CEO Eric Schmidt and a timely directory strategy will propel the company back to prominence. By SUSAN BREIDENBACH Network World, 02/08/99 Directory-enabled networking will define computing in the 21st century, and Novell has once again staked out a position in the forefront of a major technology movement. This time, the company appears poised to seize the day instead of giving ground. Novell Directory Services (NDS) has been evolving for 10 years into a mature, robust cross-platform system that many argue is the only enterprise-capable directory game in town. It is certainly the only global directory that boasts an installed base closing in on 50 million seats. But the history of technology is littered with the corpses of great products that lost out to inferior ones. Companies often fail to get the word out to the right people, can't garner enough third-party backing, or have trouble convincing potential customers that they will be around to provide support and upgrades. Novell stumbled badly earlier in the decade, blowing a near-monopoly of the LAN server market with an ill-conceived attempt to challenge Microsoft on the desktop. This two-front war alienated independent software vendors (ISV), confused users and diverted resources and attention away from Novell's core network-services business. The fast-moving world of high tech is usually unforgiving of such missteps. However, the growing need for an industrial-strength enterprise directory is providing Novell with a second chance, and the company is taking full advantage. After losing money in 1997, Novell shifted its focus to NDS and directory-enabled applications, and has now posted five strong quarters in a row. All indications are that the reborn, refocused Novell will make a go of its directory strategy, provided it has learned from the mistakes of its past. The gravy train It's not NDS that will produce a steady revenue stream for Novell, at least initially. Rather, that job will fall to the applications that take advantage of the directory. These products -ZENworks, Border-Manager, ManageWise and GroupWise - now account for 28% of Novell's product revenue and generate a big chunk of its service revenue as well, although the company doesn't break out that percentage. At any rate, the directory-related products comprise thefastest growing segment of the company's business, says Michael Simpson, Novell's director of marketing. The applications are also driving sales of Novell's flagship NetWare product. According to market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC), the company shipped more than one million new servers in 1998, up from 927,000 in 1997. NetWare 5.0, released in September, is winning performance tests and exceeding sales expectations. "This is not about abandoning one business and replacing it with another," Simpson says. "They are perfectly complementary." Still, NDS is clearly the strategic technology going forward, and the industry seems to be paying attention. Novell is licensing NDS to all comers, the idea being to seed the market and make NDS a de facto standard that will increase demand for Novell's directory-enabled applications. While these licensing deals don't produce much revenue at this point, that may change down the road if third parties start including NDS in products instead of building their own directories. The potential size of the directory services market is anyone's guess. Novell CEO Eric Schmidt has likenedit to the SQL market, which he put at $80 billion. Other estimates range to "virtually infinite" if you consider all the various applications that mayeventually be tied into a directory. John Gantz, a senior vice president at IDC, says the Internet economy is fueling a huge need for directory services. "The environment will change so fast that network administrators won't know what hit them," Gantz told the attendees at the Novell Global PartnerSummit last month in Snowbird, Utah. "Novell is maneuvering into the right place at the right time." CHECK OUT THE ENTIRE ARTICLE -- IT JUST JEEPS GETTING BETTER FROM HERE.