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

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (26853)	5/9/1999 12:01:00 PM
From: Dieter Koerner	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hi Fred, The interest on this board seems to bee related to the amount of shares traded. I was looking forward to an increased volume due to the upcoming quarterly earnings statement, but so far it has not materialized. >I am sensing Novell is beginning to get arrogant once again.< I agree with you, or has the shareholders rights plan approval at the last shareholders meeting something to do with it? (Negociating merger or buy out?) Have a nice Mothers Day, Dieter

To: Frederick Smart who wrote (26853)	5/9/1999 11:45:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello Fredrick, Here's a good question - where does confidence end and arrogance begin? Answer: at the fine line. I too at times feel the same way whenever I see the Novell stock price flutter. I had butterflies at $19 when the stock turned down to the $16 range....the same feeling when the stock previously topped into the mid-$14 range only to settle back into the high-$11 to mid-$12 range. Heck many moons ago the stock ran from $9 to the $13 range only to settle back at $10. Seems to me we've hit that same plateau here. The last 9 months have been tremendous from the launch of Netware 5.0 to ZENworks and then digitalme & BrainShare. Revenue has been growing, perception has changed (moderately but they have) and the company is being a growth phase which will sustain itself for the next year. Now we're seeing other products but it's not big news or dare I say, not as big as we'd like it to be. Some days I want to scream "SPEND SOME $$$ ON REAL ADVERTISING" and other days I'm satisfied with the "Quiet Revolution". Either way, it means I'm not totally happy with Novell's image. There's one thing in all of this that keeps me centered - Novell has directory religon and this is the FUTURE. I don't see Novell sliding back down the mountain for that one reason. Also, Dr. Schmidt has my vote of confidence in that he's not from that "old culture" and won't stand for even a ONE quarter slip up (hiccup?). And I may regret saying this but it may just take such an event to get the shake out we desperately want. I think what we will see from Novell is growth in revenues continue for the remainder of this fiscal year. Projections will be met but not surpassed. While we dream of the valuations of an Amazon.com, we'd be sorry in times like these when the downward push would make most of us quezzy. Also, Novell is quietly building a tremendous portfolio of directory-enabled applications which in the long run will translate into a great product line driving real revenue growth. Right now that doesn't do much to calm our "fears" but I'm looking beyond here and now. I'm VERY long on Novell. I believe that in 3 years, this company will be much different than what we remember from the past 3 years. The entire industry landscape will change in 3 years too and Novell is positioning itself near that center. The network operating system is giving way to the "network" - that's not just words you know - it's a concept. Most of us "techno-geeks" get it. The average person on the street doesn't. All the advertising dollars in the world won't change that today. It's something that to a person must happen on an individual basis over time. Spending $$ on advertising will help so I'm hoping that Novell can do some of that too but it's not the only answer to this problem. But here's the rub - Novell's products do not directly work for end-users - that is until now. With digitalme and i-Chain, Novell is finally making the move into the public's eye. So far, they've not done the kind of marketing to create some interest from either end-users or the people who report to those end-users. I feel that will change as people begin to test and deploy actual products based on digitalme. I work in the technical education field so I see alot of what is being done by several vendors (MSFT, CSCO, Citrix, Oracle & Novell). The only one who has extend actual marketing dollars to us is Novell. MSFT basically laughed at us while the others offered to share marketing material with us only not dollars. CSCO has some severe restrictions on what you can and can't do so I won't even go there. Only Novell would co-market anything or even listen to what we thought. Perhaps our situation is the exception and not the norm. Perhaps it's our passion and our committment which creates these opportunities for us - I don't know for sure. All I do know is that there are some very serious people over at Novell and they are serious about what they do. They really do want to be "out there" getting the message out. In the 2 years since my certification, the last 9 months have seen more articles, editorials and TV news about Novell than previously. That's encouraging to me even though I wish for more not only for myself but for everyone. The average person on the street still doesn't know much about Novell products because when do they feel they would need a Novell product? See where I'm going?? It's not like MS Office or Netscape Communicator - the Novell products an end-user actually uses are undercover, in the background. They are infrastructure products mostly and that's where Novell's marketing history comes from. Yes, this needs to be changed and NOW I agree. They should follow Cisco's lead with their advertising - that their products "run the internet". As far as arrogance goes, there's more of that in Redmond than in the rest of this world combined and all I hear from everyone is how great this company called Microsoft really is. Here is arrogance at is peak - they spend MILLIONS of $$ telling us how we desperately NEED some new product that doesn't even work! That's arrogance. Peter J Strifas