Bonum Certa Men Certa

Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part II: Novell Potpourri at End of Year

SLED cube



THE Var Guy claims that he was wrong about Novell. He refers only to their Linux business while ignoring the rest though. Novell seems to spend an out-of-the-ordinary amount of time talking about and emphasising this Linux business, which makes up a small portion of the overall portfolio and revenue. From the CTO's blog:

Last year, we launched OES 2. This product is important to our NetWare customer base, drives the growth of Linux, and is a proof-point of industrial strength virtualization using SLES and XEN. The product’s success has contributed to the business success achieved in fiscal 2008 by our Workgroup team. Our attention and focus have paid off. We have now launched a service pack for OES 2—one which adds considerable function.


BrainShare



BrainShare may be over for good [1, 2, 3], but GWAVA has its fist on the spigot and it's unleashing another press release:



GWAVA today announced that Novell customers that have already purchased airline tickets to attend BrainShare 2009 will be offered a credit to pay for the change fee that many airlines charge to change tickets. Those wishing to change their flights to Las Vegas to attend GWAVACon, January 25 - 27 2009 will be given a credit equal to the amount of the change fee charged by the airline.


Netware and other crown jewels of Novell get the spanking in these comments from the coverage of BrainShare cancellation.

I am the senior engineer of a 5000 seat company who was up until the last year and a half a complete and total Novell shop. Netware, Groupwise, Bordermanager, IChain, eXtend, iManager, all that stuff. To to tune of about half a million dollars a year we were paying Novell to LEASE licenses under their MLA agreement and get support. After years of promises of a better product (Groupwise) and an easier to manager server / directory services system (Netware and NDS/Edir) the return on investment we were making ANNUALLY were just not there. No one is writing any software for netware or edirectory anymore, it is full of proprietary junk that no one bothers to mess with, its a nightmare of incompatibility. Netware itself had really not evolved since 4.1, they were (still are) selling a product in Netware 6.5 that is really no better than Netware 5.1 (whose only real difference over 4.1 was that it had java). And they still charge ridiculous prices for their products. They have just about priced themselves out of the game and have made no product improvements in their core (OS/directory services) in YEARS. Groupwise certainly has advanced, but it is BEHIND Exchange and Outlook at this point and has been since roughly Exchange 2000. The only reason Novell is still in business is because they have a BLINDLY loyal customer base who are too afraid to move on. I was one who drank the red Kool Aid back in the day, but have moved on. Our ROI was about 2 years.

[...]

You're absolutely right about development for Netware and eDirectory. And both are going away, eventually - Netware first, eDir soon after. There is exactly ONE person writing any code for Netware at Novell and he only does so 50% of his time. The Groupwise client has paled next to Outlook for nearly a decade, but the back end is MUCH better than it is on Exchange, always has been. Novell's licensing model isn't much different than Microsoft's, but recent changes to the support entitlements are nothing more than moves to prop up the margin. Novell has a stunning lack of R&D and Quality Assurance - when was the last time they developed a product internally? Zen Configuration Management 10, and that was released approximately a year behind schedule (based on original timelines) and a year too early (based on the number of bugs and lack of functionality). Novell is getting by on acquisitions (Tally, Senforce, eSecurity, Platespin, Managed Objects) when it comes to product development.


Partners



Despite the above, Novell maintains a relationship with some companies. Novell, for example, is named as a source of StrataCache's inception.

StrataCache introduced SuperLumin Networks, a software and services company founded by a group of veteran engineers from high-tech companies including Novell, Cisco and others.


The Novell-Avnet relationship was mentioned last week, but here it is appearing again.

Novell and Avnet Technology Solutions, an operating group of Avnet, Inc. have announced a strategic relationship to provide virtualization and workload management solutions to data center customers.


Here is a company that brags about becoming Novell's Training Partner of the Year in Asia-Pacific.

Excom Education has won the 2008 Novell Training Partner of the Year Asia-Pacific, in addition to being recognised as a Platinum Training Partner for Asia-Pacific in 2009. It is the second consecutive year Excom has received such a high accolade in the region.


That's all for this week. It was a holiday.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Throwing Money at Lawyers Can't Stop Us (It Never Did)
Even just trying to censor things can result in the opposite of the desired outcome
BetaNews Has More or Less Died After Experiments With LLM Slop, Is Linuxsecurity Next?
It doesn't seem like BetaNews knows what it's doing, let alone what it talks about
Links 13/06/2025: Journalists Targeted by Cracking, China-Japan and Israel-Iran Tensions Grow
Links for the day
 
Links 14/06/2025: FDA Changes Priorities, Cassette Data Storage From The 1970s
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Steam Next Fest and Thoughts on Gemini
Links for the day
Site/Datacentre Maintenance Next Week
speed things up
Bulgaria: GNU/Linux Near 10%
The Bulgarian market seems to be changing
I Never Spoke to BetaNews. But BetaNews Wants to Ensure I Never Will, Either.
Sometimes just the reluctance to talk about it can say a great deal
Online Search or Large Search Engines Aren't Working Anymore
business models that directly compete with interests of Web users
Holidays and Breaks
I've hardly taken any long breaks since I got married
Danish OpenDocument Freedom
"year of Linux"
When Abusive Law Firms (Working for Microsofters Against Us) Assert That Someone Writing in Social Media About Himself is Confidential Information
There was no reason to throw "GDPR" into 2 SLAPPs; they know it, but the goal was to increase the cost of a Defence and lessen the incentive to challenge the SLAPPs
Links 14/06/2025: Wars and L.A. Distortion Effect
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Historic Ada Design and GeminiSpace.Club to Expire
Links for the day
Links 14/06/2025: India Plane Crash and Middle-Eastern War
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 13, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: (Not)virtues and Project Yeet Broadband
Links for the day
Links 13/06/2025: US Reduces Nonessential Staff at Baghdad Embassy Ahead of Strikes in Iran, Invasion of California Debated
Links for the day
X11 is Free Software
Whether you agree (e.g. on politics) with the person/s forking it doesn't matter
The More Time Passes, the Better Our Advice on Social Control Media Seems
At the end of the day, any platform you do not control yourself is working for someone else
Twitter (X) is Dying, Now It's Just Like a Mafia-Type Operation of the Man Who Does Nazi Salutes in Public
a form of extortion
UK High Court Blasts Brett Wilson LLP for Misusing "GDPR" After Failed Efforts to Censor Critics Using 'Libel' Claims
No wonder this firm is rapidly shrinking
Recent Blunders in Microsoft GitHub (e.g. Slop-Generated Bug Reports or GPL Violations 'as a Service') Taking Their Toll?
Put bluntly, if you still use Microsoft GitHub, then you're slave to Microsoft
American Imperialism and Microsoft Plagiarism
Techrights will therefore do what Microsoft does not want it to do: it'll write even more about Microsoft
When They Have Nothing Left to Help Advance Abusive Litigation for Microsoft People... Other Than Throwing ~500 Pages of Someone Else's Work Into a PDF
Microsoft is having a very tough year
The Price of Exposing Corruption in Poland (and Elsewhere)
It's easier to participate in corruption than to merely do the right thing and oppose it
Slopwatch and Yet More Holes in 'Secure Boot' (as Usual!), Promoted Inside Linux by the Man We Are Suing
Today's Slopwatch will be short
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: People You've Left Behind, Life Update and OS Changes
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 12, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 12, 2025
Links 12/06/2025: Portland Homeless Deaths Quadruple, COVID Cases Surge in Asia
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
"The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
'polite' bullying
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
EPO's Gareth Lord Asked About "Quality and Productivity" or, Put Another Way, Why the EPO Keeps Granting So Many Invalid/Illegal Patents
letter to Lord
EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
Step 2
TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
The Toxic Playbook
Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
It's Possible That BetaNews Got Cracked, But Nobody Talks About It, The Site Contains an Outdated Old Image, No Activity
It's possible that they will never explain what happened to the site and users' accounts
Links 12/06/2025: Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/06/2025: Video Game Diegesis and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Why the Militants Have Lost Every Battle Since 2022 (When Attacking My Wife and I in Various Ways, Even Attacking Our Employers)
This takes patience, sure, but at the end most evildoers face the consequences for their actions
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
Politics Will Impact Software Choices
Will those systems respect users' freedom?
EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025