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

To: ToySoldier who wrote (26786)	4/28/1999 2:13:00 AM
From: Jack Whitley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

<<Just a lame TV commercial idea (I never said I was a great advertising company prospect) but you know what I'm getting at. NOVL must get they concept in front of corporations that are not currently interested in NOVL because of the "NOVL is a dying company" thoughts. Believe me, there are still a TON of these IT directors out there that think this.>> I agree completely. The Lotus/Domino "I Am" commercials are very powerful. There is not a decision maker out there that doesn't at least know what R5 is and have a sense for the power it brings. Building brand awareness among the masses is very important, even for technical products. I don't think your commercial ideas are lame at all. As shallow as it sounds, Novell has to make NDS "cool". "Digital Me" is a great trojan horse and they are blowing it. They've done the hard part, it really works, they just need to PROMOTE it. How's this for an NDS commercial - We are in a smoke filled data center with about half of the screens flickering the "blue screen of death" and 20 or so network admins each on the phone screaming either "REBOOT!!" or "I CAN"T FIND IT!!" Cut over to a Novell powered data center with all machines running smoothly, silently, Open View showing 95% resources available, and no one in the room. Cut to a golf course with 2 guys playing golf with Novell staff bags on the cart. They putt out on 18, the guy takes his pager out and presses a few keys and says " I just mounted 5 gig worth of files, lets play 9 more". They drive off to the first tee. I think that would hit home to a large slice of the IS community. The only thing more powerful (but not much) would be some sexually oriented commercial. jww

To: ToySoldier who wrote (26786)	4/28/1999 11:41:00 AM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello! You may already know this but for the rest of us, there's a good place to turn these ideas in at Novell - it's called the Customer Response Center (crc@novell.com). They will listen to ideas, thoughts etc and see that it gets down to the product & project managers of the product in question. I'm sure that you could find a way to get these ideas to them who in turn could use them in their own marketing plans. Seems that there is some shift going on at Novell about marketing but I don't think we'll see $100 million ad campaigns anytime soon. I would like to see more exposure to mainstream media (print & TV) too. By the way, I like you're idea :) We have some ads we're working on to promote Novell Education as well as some "seminar" type workshops to introduce the products to more IT people. At BrainShare we discussed with Novell the opportunity to target these workshops at higher levels within companies (such as CEOs, CIOs, MIS Directors and even CFOs). We see a definite enthusiasm for Novell products once people see them, work with them and understand them. It goes beyond just selling them on the product but consulting and education too. Companies need "barriers" such as implementation, maintenance and training lowered before then can make the shift in their business focus into Novell's directory-based products. Making NDS work takes some sweat, it's not rocket science but it's not like building a sand castle either. Also, maybe they could move Corporate Marketing and Technical Marketing out to the new San Jose facility. The closer they get to LA, the easier it will be for them to get into some advertising that sells? Peter J Strifas Check out our bus ad at wetrain4u.com Any comments are welcomed :)