Financial/Competitive Analysis

LIKE MANY other companies and their assets, Novell's stock is suffering. One firm keeps flooding the Web with press releases about financial analyses. Novell is covered in a few of them based on a couple of press releases, namely:

1. Novell Inc - SWOT Analysis - New Research Report on Companies and Markets

Novell Inc Company Profile is the essential source for top-level company data and information. The report examines the company’s key business structure and operations, history and products, and provides summary analysis of its key revenue lines and strategy.

2. Decision Matrix - Selecting an Enterprise Security Vendor - Competitor Focus - New Research Report on Companies and Markets

The report covers the following vendors: CA, Check Point, Cisco, HP, IBM, Juniper, McAfee, Microsoft, Novell, RSA, Symantec and VeriSign.

Novell is also looking forward to a competitive review, which is not necessarily news. There is already a selection though.

Software company Novell has selected PAN Communications as its North American AOR following a competitive review. The agency was awarded a six-figure contract, said Ian Bruce, Novell's director of global PR.

Netware

Not much to see here apart from a book chapter that covered Novell somewhere along the way.

4. Adopting Novell software on a “server” with Novell network cards and client software on the PCs.

Novell cards and software worked with PC-DOS in the standard PC-AT and so quickly gained market share, reaching 90% of the market by 1989 with IBM’s token ring based LAN manager taking most of the rest.

The basic Novell software worked extremely well in part because it used a networking technology that was just a marginally modified form of TCP/IP, and in part because it did very little - it merely turned a server into a shared disk and printer manager accessible by users on network attached personal computers. That, however, was enough to turn them into a billion dollar company by mid 1990.

Virtualisation

Here is a pro-Novell piece accusing ComputerWorld (IDG) of being overly obsessed with Microsoft.

I have been reading Computerworld for around 10 years now. Over the last couple of years I have noticed that the amount of Microsoft content has increased dramatically to the point where we should just about call it Microsoftworld. It is becoming blisfully clear that if you are anything other then Microsoft that you have no show of ever appearing in the Computerworld.

[...]

I also found it laughable where in the last two releases of the Computerworld that you talk about Microsoft’s cloud computing product vision which is yet to be released. Maybe you should have a talk to the New Zealand Super Computer or Gen-i, which this coming week is putting into production Novell’s Platespin Orchestrator product (formerly ZENworks Orchestrator).

IDG, which owns ComputerWorld, is likely to favor those who pay its bills.

Mail

The biggest news of the week, as far as Novell is concerned, is probably the release of GroupWise 8. In the press release the is a comparison to Microsoft's offering:

Collaboration solution delivers fully customizable, interactive workspace with the broadest platform support at a lower total cost of ownership compared with Microsoft Exchange WALTHAM, Mass., Nov. 17

This was also covered in:

• Novell Keeps Its E-Mail Client Alive With GroupWise 8
• Novell bolsters GroupWise 8
• Novell releases GroupWise 8
• GroupWise 8 update adds dashboard and Web 2.0 apps
• Novell completes GroupWise 8

GWAVA had a press release that almost accompanied the previous announcement.

GWAVA, Novell's largest collaboration partner for Novell GroupWise and Novell Teaming is celebrating the fifth consecutive GWAVACon in North America and its tenth GWAVACon Worldwide. What better city to host the event than Las Vegas? Customers, prospects, partners and IT and business professionals come from around the globe to learn about solutions to real problems, network with peers, get certified on the latest technologies and of course, have a great time. Novell has expanded their presence this year at GWAVACon with more sessions on ZENWorks, Novell Teaming, Linux and of course the star of the show -- GroupWise 8.

Here is another reminder of GroupWise support in Blackberry.

The Storm continues BlackBerry's 10-year legacy of mobile e-mail, working with BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise. It also ties in e-mail access for consumers with most popular personal e-mail services. While the iPhone does now integrate with Microsoft Exchange, it doesn't have the proven track record of corporate e-mail greatness that BlackBerry brings to the table.

Identity Management

Spread in a lot of places is this Daon press release which targets investors, as usual, but also customers of Novell.

Daon, a leading provider of identity assurance software announced today a strategic partnership with Trivir LLC focused on delivering physical access control systems (PACS) provisioning to Novell Identity Manager customers. Customers can now fully integrate their physical access control systems, regardless of vendor, into their identity management environment.

New hires, employee terminations and changes to employees' roles can automatically result in appropriate changes to their physical access. This solution improves security and facilitates regulatory compliance by ensuring that a given employee's status is consistent throughout both the logical and physical environments.

Microsoft/Novell brought into alignment in Sunderland:

City of Sunderland College, one of the largest further education and sixth form colleges in the country, has partnered with NEC Philips Unified Solutions to implement a new Identity Management solution, utilising Novell Identity Management technology. The solution, which synchronises data from a mixed Microsoft and Novell infrastructure, will authenticate and manage staff and student access across the College's five campuses spread throughout Sunderland.

It's a press release 'ripoff'.

City of Sunderland College, a further education and sixth form college in UK, has partnered with NEC Philips Unified Solutions (NEC Philips), a provider of secure enterprise IT and communications solutions, to implement a new Identity Management solution, utilising Novell Nasdaq:NOVL) Identity Management technology.

People

As people turn to new employers, their career history shows an intersection with Novell. Here is one new example.

Over the last two decades, Sean Moshir led several industry changing technology initiatives from the birth to the boom of the Internet including the development of the world's first network management language, ManageWare and NetBasic, which was sold to IBM and Novell respectively.

John Edwards is named "Entrepreneur Of The Year" and he used to work at Novell as VP.

Early in his career, John made his way through the ranks at Novell to quickly become an executive vice president where he was instrumental in the development and go-to-market strategy for NetWare.

We wrote about the following appointment just over a week ago. Alan Robinson inherited this key position after a Novell senior had left the company. Robinson is now being interviewed.

Novell has appointed Alan Robinson as managing director of A/NZ and he's excited about the open source vendor's channel plans for 2009.

In his new role, Robinson will oversee business strategy development, day-to-day operation and enablement programmes to ensure Novell’s global and regional strategy is executed locally.

Robinson told CRN that the vendor has a global commitment to driving a greater portion of its business through partners and Australia is at the forefront of execution against this objective.

Marketing

YouTube has a couple of new videos from Italy. This is summarised as "Luca Bendinelli while presenting the new Novell Workgroup Suite." There is really now much to see here though.

Direct link

Direct link

Novell's Ross is still tossing some Novell adverts at YouTube. Here is the latest.

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Other

Novell was mentioned in a couple of press releases where it's just part of a group of companies. Still, this helps in tracking who Novell is affiliated with and actively enraging with, so here are some portions.

Enterprise storage software leader APTARE(R), Inc. today announced the appointment of Robert Q. Cordell II as vice president of business development. Cordell, who brings more than 30 years of executive management and technical IT experience to his new post, reports to Richard Clark, president and CEO of APTARE.

[...]

Using APTARE StorageConsole products, companies like Novell, Calamos Investments, Eprod and York University increase management effectiveness, maximize storage utilization, and reduce costs. The software is sold direct and through a large base of resellers and managed services providers. For more information, please visit www.aptare.com.

  

The company's team of highly trained professionals undergoes continuous training in new and emerging technologies, is certified across a variety of technology platforms, including Cisco, Novell, IBM and more, and has years of experience in network security consulting, providing security solutions and in resolving security issues efficiently and cost-effectively.

It has in general been a quiet week for Novell's business. ⬆