A lot has happened so far this year. At Novell, for example, the staff exodus is similar to that which you find at Microsoft at the moment.

Novell lost its General Counsel just over a week ago and many employees in South Africa are said to have escaped the company too. Novell's latest loss is the Vice President Ben Hendrick (see correction at the bottom). Novell has not announced this yet (not to its investors anyway), but the following press release from Ben's new employer pretty much gives it away.

He spent more than seventeen years at Novell Incorporated, with five years as Vice President and Managing Partner over the Americas Enterprise Service Line and Practice delivery teams. With stints in various services leadership positions prior to taking overall profit and loss responsibility for the America's (United States, Canada, and Latin America) Enterprise Service Line.

Over at the Var Guy's site, a dramatic headline is used which asks: Did Novell Just Die?

Perhaps Novell could sell itself — though such statements have been made about the company ever since former CEO Ray Noorda retired in 1994. Rumored buyers over the years have included Sun, IBM and Oracle, just to name a few. But The VAR Guy doesn’t see that happening. Alas, open source continues to represent a small fraction of Novell’s overall revenue. Novell also has a nice footprint in the endpoint security market and the identity management sector. But there again, sales are a fraction of Novell’s overall revenue.

Meanwhile, according to ComputeWorld Australia, Novell has lost another city counsil.

Gold Coast City Council has cut the complexity from network management by dumping its unsupported Novell network authentication software for a new solution.

With declining revenues and many layoffs expected this year, Novell's future does not seem so bright. Has the Microsoft deal saved them? Of course not. It hurt Novell and it also hurt other Linux vendors, not to mention Free software as a whole. Essentially, Novell chose to take down some of its friends along with it. Fortunately, that won't succeed because Free software never dies. ⬆

Correction: we've just caught the following important comment.

Novell operation in India was known as "Onward Novell India" till last year when Novell bought full control. So technically he moved to the same company he worked with, since so many years.