02.14.09
Novell News Summary – Part I: Idle Week for Novell
AS EMPHASISED in the previous post, this seems like a slow week for Novell, with the exception of Microsoft technologies that Novell develops at its own expense. It’s actually familiar because the situation is becoming similar to what Microsoft did to Corel and we hear that Novell braces itself for more layoffs (possibly next week).
Let’s have a quick look at the little coverage that exists about Novell, with the exception of its GNU/Linux products.
Finance
The outlook for Novell does not look particularly bright.
Linux revenues (from its SuSE acquisition) have grown to 16% of the company’s total in 2008. However, Novell hasn’t had a decent year since 2004, losing money in 2008, 2007, and 2005 (if you exclude the Microsoft (MSFT) settlement), and eking out a 2% profit in 2006 that was lost again in 2007.
Support for GroupWise is mentioned in this Barracuda press release.
Barracuda Networks Inc., the worldwide leader in email and Web security appliances, today announced that the Barracuda Backup Service now offers message-level backup for Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise.
Teaming + Conferencing is rarely mentioned in the press, but here is a new exception.
The city of Dublin, Ohio evaluated several collaboration solutions before choosing Novell’s Teaming + Conferencing software.
[...]
Before implementing the new software, city employees used a variety of tools for phone and Web-based conferences. With the new system, Novell says, they can log into a workspace and schedule a group conference call as easily as a meeting. The ability to quickly set up Web conferences has helped ease the problem of limited meeting space in the city.
Security
In a long article about database security, Novell received just a couple of paragraphs.
This eventuality makes vendor-agnostic frameworks an appealing option. Novell’s Sentinel offerings (identity and access management, threat and vulnerability management) answer this need.
“The issue is, how do you ensure that the databases themselves are fortresses in this complex, layered environment?” says Nick Nikols, vice president of identity and security products at Novell. “To do this, you need an understanding of identity-based events through your SIM.”
People
Is this the same Novell that invoked layoffs? Either way, there is a touching personal story there.
But he wasn’t prepared for the phone call he got in mid-October from his boss at Novell’s software division in Lebanon, New Hampshire. A frequent telecommuter, Askren was working at home that day, and caught off guard.
[...]
(Albright) Askren says Novell’s parent company hatched the layoff plan in July, yet kept assuring the workers their jobs were secure until a week and a half before the boom fell. Adding to his stress, the sudden layoff is trickling down to his daughters. One, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles, may have to give up her dreams and come home, now that her dad can’t help her make rent. Another, a single mother still in college, is also struggling to make ends meet.
Marketing
Novell has been using YouTube to do its marketing for quite some time now and this new commercial has just been added.
Another person pushed into YouTube some demos of Novell Support Advisor (the former video was removed, so maybe it’s essentially the same).
Miscellany
Novell was also mentioned quite negligibly in:
- The Infusion of Community and Product Management for Social Software Development
- The Radicati Group Releases “Business Social Networks – Market Quadrant 2009″
- GuardianEdge Announces Record Results in 2008
Novell’s brand does appear in some place if one looks deeply enough. It’s also mentioned in this article along with an extensive list of other products.
I really like the breadth of OS support found in Total Protection. From ePO, you can deploy and manage policies on all 32-bit Windows platforms (including NT 4.0 with SP6a) and 64-bit Windows systems, as well as Novell NetWare, Linux, Mac OS X, Citrix MetaFrame 1.8, and XP Tablet PCs. As with the Sophos and Symantec products, I found that being able to manage a heterogeneous enterprise from a single console was a big plus.
Later on we’ll take a look at SLED/SLES. █
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