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

To: PJ Strifas who wrote (26852)	5/9/1999 11:00:00 AM
From: Frederick Smart	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

What's Happening To Novell?? I posted this on another board in a new company which I have a particular interest in - from a strategic point of view for my business and as an investment. I am sensing Novell is beginning to get arrogant once again. There's been a huge shift since Brainshare. They've begun to shut down. They are full of themselves. The fluid, open, "out there" energy is slowly being turned off. I don't know what's going on, but I hope Eric is aware of these developments. I certainly don't have a clue. I just "sense" these things. This board has dried up for a reason. We all sense there is "something" going on. Novell's business model should completely open up to the outside world. Where customers, NOT the company, drives it's entire business model. Read on....... ====================================================== Building I-Link Community & Mindshare >>I-Link's integrated access suite of products and services are targeted to millions of small home office and small to mid-sized businesses. These products and services are the most flexible, scalable, and cost effective.>> Glotech's contributions to this board are an example of what will be required from ALL companies, customers and shareholders in this emerging "new era" of business which will - more and more - be defined by INDIVIDUALS, not big corporations or enterprises., going forward. This is an onging process which will define and grow the "stake' that any company has in the foundation of their value-added - i.e. the trust that's shared between a company offering value-added products and services and the customers that appreciate and are willing to pay a value-added economic benefit for those products and services. A company's shareholders are in the middle of this fluid mix of information between the company, it's customers, it's competitors and the entire marketplace of existing and potential future clients and shareholders who could discover the same "information mindshare" and see and believe for themselves the value of switching their economic and trust value stores to a different company. This is a wonderful time in world history for with the advent of all these new "open" forms of communication technologies we have - for the first time in history - the potential to use our collective efforts, ideas and contacts to more effectively and efficiently close the information, process and procedural gaps that used to exist inside and outside the networks of shareholders and customers which ALL companies depend on to survive and grow. This is simply "closing the loop". Anytime you can close the loop on an outstanding question, idea, piece of news - or even a basic a mystery - we have advanced the cause of truth on which all of us depend for our own growth and development. None of us has a monopoly on truth, but we ALL have the power to judge. I contribute to this and others boards where I have investments and strategic interests in for one reason: to stir the pot in the quest to close these loops in the pursuit of truth. The future successful companies in this "new era of business" will be those that open up to this kind of positive dialogue. And that's what the Internet is doing. Simply opening up an unlimited number of new avenues, forms and types of communication which lead to new ideas in the ongoing quest to develop a sustainable and growing base of mindshare and trust among the 3 groups behind all companies: employees, clients and shareholders. If companies embrace this new open interactive model of communicating and sharing information they will be advancing their foundation for they are building COMMUNITY. Building "community" is the "new era" term for a dying piece of an "old era" business model: building a BRAND. BRANDS are laced with a sense of arrogance - "come to me"..."we are the best"...."we are powerful". BRANDS are just an arrogant way of defining a sense of public awareness for a company, product or service which company excutives in the days of yore thought THEY controlled. Wake up Corporate America!! If you don't get it, get it: you've lost control. Scarey as it may sound, the people have the power now. And this is why we will slowly experience the death of brands which will be replaced by a new term: COMMUNITY. "Community" implies a sense of balance between it's members along lines of trust, proximity, awareness to general information that sustains the community - and all the various products and services that are derived from that community. Communities require order, balance and trust among its individual members. Power and control no longer exist in community for the collective power of ONE- balanced among many individuals - will most derive the most efficient solution to allocating scare resources of time, energy and the inputs/material we use to create new things that add value. The successful companies of the future will have to walk a very humble walk for they will need to embrace all the delicate nuances that allow for the creation, maintenance and growth of these new networks where "community" and "trust" will have to reside. In the not to distant future we'll all be able to "click bye-bye" and transfer ALL of our day to day needs for products and services. Just ONE mouse click away. This is where the world is heading. I don't care how great any companies technology is. The first sense or whiff of arrogance can potentially poison the well and very quickly cut that company off from future growth and development. I am sensing this is now happening with another investment which I am part of: Novell. They have great technology, but their old arrogance - in the form of these small cancers from their past culture - is beginning to creap back into the picture. I-Link is in that wonderful stage where there is still this great mix of uncertainty and potential which leads to greatness. I-Link is in middle ot the hottest field in the world right now: telecommunications. I'd sure like to see Novell and I-Link come together in some way

To: PJ Strifas who wrote (26852)	5/9/1999 11:51:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Respond to of 42771

Do you think he knows something he's not telling anyone?? Microsoft says Gates selling stock to diversify WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) chief executive Bill Gates has sold more than 7 million Microsoft shares for more than $600 million in a move to diversify his portfolio, Microsoft said Thursday. He also plans to sell three million more shares, which would get him about $260 million, an SEC filing showed. Gates, considered the world's richest man, unloaded a total of six million shares on April 23 and 26, according to recent filings he made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Prior to those sales, he disposed of 1.35 million shares on January 26, the documents showed. A Microsoft spokesman said that Gates was selling the shares for routine portfolio diversification, the same reason cited by the company when Gates has sold Microsoft shares in the past. ''This is part of Bill's normal programme of selling done for purposes of diversification of his portfolio,'' spokesman Tom Pilla said. In addition, two Gates foundations -- the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation -- collectively sold 52 million Microsoft shares from January 27 through February 22 for about $4.3 billion. Gates established the William H. Gates Foundation about four years ago to focus on world health, population and education issues. The other foundation helps libraries in poor areas gain access to computer equipment and the Internet. The 43-year-old Gates, who has been making his mark as a philanthropist with huge financial donations, has said he plans to give away most of his vast fortune before he dies. His Microsoft stake alone, nearly one billion shares, is worth some $79 billion.