12.20.08
Do-No-Evil Saturday – Part III: Finance, People, and Partners
THE notorious Partner Group had Novell mentioned in another one of its ‘precious’ reports.
In its 2008 Web Access Management Magic Quadrant report, Gartner has placed Oracle, IBM, CA, Sun Microsystems and Novell in the leaders’ quadrant. Gartner positions vendors in the leaders’ quadrant based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute.
Finance
Previously, we covered Novell’s results right here, but there is still same late coverage.
Novell today announced financial results for its fourth fiscal quarter and full fiscal year ended 31 October 2008. For the quarter, Novell reported net revenue of $245 million, consistent with the fourth fiscal quarter of 2007. Loss from operations for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2008 was $6 million, compared to a loss from operations of $13 million for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2007.
Here is another analysis of Novell’s position.
Four years ago most analysts considered that Novell had lost its direction and lacked a coherence of strategy. In fact, some people classified Novell as a services company and not an infrastructure vendor at that particular time. Skip related content
But over the last four years Novell has been quietly reinventing itself, and through internal transformation and acquisition has emerged as a significant vendor in the data center and virtualization space.
Novells acquisition of SUSE Linux was seen as a tactical move when it was completed in January 2004, and since then Novell has been working to drive Unix from the data center by extolling the cost benefits of moving to Linux.
However, in 2008 Novell acquired PlateSpin and Managed Objects, two vendors that operated in the management space. PlateSpin is best known for its Physical to Virtual, P2V, migration tool PowerConvert, but has actually moved beyond this by developing a capability to analyze and automate an entire heterogeneous data centers workload, whether this is physical or virtual. Managed Objects is a well respected Business Service Management vendor with an innovative new visualization tool called MyCMDB.
Netware
Microsoft’s press is promoting (by coverage) a networking book that includes Novell, at least in part.
In Part 4, the book goes over network operating systems. This chapter covers Microsoft material more than Novell and Unix put together (about 90 pages dedicated to Microsoft, 70 to Novell and Unix). I would like to have seen more on Unix, which only grabbed 20 to 25 pages of the entire book. The author focuses on creating domain controllers for Active Directory, but only briefly discusses the different flavors of Unix, and especially the Berkley and DARPA command sets. Not enough balance across all options for my taste. Novell was covered in some detail, but the company that did directory services on a network first is hardly given justice compared to what’s covered in the chapter on Active Directory.
Virtualisation
We mentioned the news about Avnet last week and now arrives some more coverage.
Novell, a provider of IT management software, and Avnet Technology Solutions, an operating group of Avnet, have announced a strategic relationship to provide virtualisation and workload management services to data centre customers.
We also mentioned Pollack quite recently (about a month ago) and he is now appointed as Advisor, having remained at Novell while former colleagues left (more history in [1, 2, 3]).
DynamicOps, a recent spin-off from Credit Suisse, recently made a bit of noise in the virtualization space with an announcement around some of their new product features, and we also found out about a new team member that they recently added.
Here is a new press release about him becoming an Advisor at Enomaly.
Enomaly, a pioneer in cloud computing products and services, today announced that Stephen Pollack has joined its board of advisors. Pollack has a long history of working with leading technology companies and was the founder of PlateSpin, a provider of workload management solutions for the data center, acquired by Novell in March of 2008 for $205M.
Prior to joining PlateSpin, Stephen held senior management positions at FloNetwork Inc., Fulcrum Technologies (now part of OpenText) and NCR among others. He brings more than 25 years of IT experience in marketing, sales, development and lifecycle support for successful commercial software products in a variety of technology and market segments.
GroupWise
The iPhone is on many people’s lips and along with it comes the occasional mention of GroupWise compatibility.
Providing a broader solution could give smaller organizations — or those that already have legacy solutions such as Novell’s GroupWise — options that are now available only via Exchange. And it could help position the iPhone to better compete with RIM.
There is also that usual Blackberry-GroupWise connection.
Bomgar Corporation today announced support for Blackberry mobile devices with the latest version of the Bomgar Box,™ a leading appliance-based remote support solution used by several large enterprises, including Tennant Company and Novell.
People
The Var Guy is peddling some disguised Novell ‘advert’ (although it’s not the intention). It is centered around a talk with an executive who once bragged about Novell’s “peace of mind” (regarding patents).
Enter Levy. It’s only a hunch, but The VAR Guy thinks Levy will build marketing bridges between Novell’s various offerings. If everything goes as planned, SUSE Linux partners will more aggressively market identity and security management, and vice-versa. Moreover, Levy will help Novell to accelerate demand for some of the company’s more recent products — including the PlateSpin data center management tool.
Schmidt, who used to lead Novell, is listed the 6th most influential technology leader in 2008, but the man who wrote this is a Windows/Microsoft fan with a history of Free software bashing, so his ladder must be taken with a barrel of salt.
6. Eric Schmidt, Google
While Google ultimately aims for a broader consumer focus of building great tools to broaden the power of the Internet, the company is quietly making inroads with its business technology products. Whether it’s the expansion of Gmail functionality to become a true competitor to Microsoft Outlook, large organizations such as the Washington D.C. municipality migrating from Microsoft Office to Google Apps, the continued expansion of the Google enterprise search appliances, or the potential for Android smartphones to become powerful business devices, you can see Google methodically moving into the enterprise arena. And don’t forget that Google Chairman/CEO Eric Schmidt previously worked for two enterprise vendors, Sun Microsystems and Novell.
Here is a movement of some managerial type, Yves Michali, who has a history in both Microsoft and Novell.
Yves Michali brings considerable software industry experience to the company. After serving as General Manager of Novell France he spent ten years at Microsoft, six of which were based in Seattle.
Partners
Novell certification is earned by this host adapter, according to the vendor’s press release.
ATTO Technology, Inc., a global leader of storage connectivity and infrastructure solutions for data-intensive computing environments, today announced that the ATTO ExpressSAS H30F SAS/SATA II Host Adapter has received the Novell® YES CERTIFIED compatibility designation with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Service Pack 1. The ExpressSAS H30F host adapter is a 16-port SAS/SATA II host adapter with transfer rates of up to 3 Gigabit per second per port. YES CERTIFIED status assures customers that the H30F is compatible with Novell products, and that ATTO and Novell will work together to support customers that are deploying the H30F in a Novell environment.
A company that trades with Novell has just got a new president.
PJA is proud to be named 2008 Agency of the Year by BtoB Magazine. PJA is a $67 million advertising and marketing agency with offices in Cambridge, Mass. and San Francisco, Calif. PJA serves a global roster of technology, life science and healthcare clients that includes: Novell, Trend Micro, GE Healthcare, Boston Scientific, Akamai, TriZetto Group, and Invitrogen. For more information, visit www.agencypja.com.
Here is another company that lists Novell veteran/s among its founders.
STRATACACHE today introduced SuperLumin Networks, a software and services company founded by a group of veteran engineers from high-tech companies including Novell, Cisco and others. SuperLumin Networks offers a next generation high-performance caching proxy software solution.
In summary, there has been nothing significant. People go on vacation already. █
