04.04.09
Novell News Summary – Part III: SCO, Finance, Netware, GroupWise, Partners, Hardware, and Marketing
Summary: Lots of Novell news ranging from SCO and Netware to hardware and people
WHAT a week of pranks it must have been for Novell. Between rumours of an IBM takeover to similar ones involving Microsoft, Novell sure needed a sense of humour. Here is another joke about Novell bidding for Linus Torvalds.
Ron Hovespian, Novell CEO, stopped bidding on behalf of Novell, Inc. at $2.6 Billion. “We just couldn’t justify a higher price during these already stressful and uncertain times–even for someone as important as Linus Torvalds.” Novell and Hovespian made an unsuccessful bid for Richard Stallman earlier this year.
On to serious matters, we finally have some news about SCO. Groklaw is driving at full speed again.
SCO
SCO is refusing to pay Novell, even if it’s just a small portion of what it owes altogether.
There are some filings in the SCO v. Novell litigation. SCO is objecting to some of Novell’s Bill of Costs. If you recall, Novell filed their Bill of Costs back on December 10, 2008, after final judgment was entered in the SCO v Novell litigation. SCO then moved the Court to stay taxation of costs, a motion Kimball recently denied. In that Order, Kimball gave SCO ten days to file this objection, and here we are. And in the second filing, the court tried to mail something to Jonathan Lee Riches, but the post office evidently couldn’t find him. In prison. “Mail returned as undeliverable… unable to forward.” Uh oh.
Moreover, according to Groklaw, SCO gets another slap on the cheek.
I can’t believe there’s yet more major news, all in one day. But there is, from the bankruptcy front. SCO’s period of exclusivity is over, as you can see from the minutes of today’s hearing [PDF]. Look at number 1 on the list under the heading “Proceedings” and you will see the word: “DENIED”. This was regarding the SCO motion [PDF] to extend the period of exclusivity, it’s 4th, the motion that Al Petrofsky objected to pro se, as you can see on the Notice of matters on the agenda for today.
Erwan and PJ have re-organised the material that they have about SCO vs. Novell.
Erwan has put together for us a chart of all the motions in SCO v. Novell that were decided prior to trial in the August 10, 2007 Order and the final two motions decided after trial in the July 16, 2008 Order. Since SCO is appealing that order, based in part on the idea that some motions should not have been decided on summary judgment and needed to go to trial before a jury, it seems a good time to organize them all, so you can follow the arguments in the appeal, particularly if you are thinking of attending oral argument. Novell will file its response shortly, and oral argument will be on May 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. in Courtroom I, Byron White U.S. Courthouse, Denver, CO.
SCO’s days as a business (even as a litigation business) seem numbered.
Finance
Novell’s managers are organising a meeting with their shareholders, whom they disappointed.
Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) today announced that Ron Hovsepian, Chief Executive Officer, and Dana Russell, Chief Financial Officer, will be presenting to investors in New York City on Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 12:00pm ET.
This press release appears in other sites and CRN reports on Novell’s fixed prices for its broken channel.
With an aim at becoming more channel-friendly, and introducing further flexibility, Novell has decided to move to a single price list. It plans to add deal registration and other enhancements for partners and other solution providers to the list.
It is replacing its older model, which had four different price lists, with a single one. Novell is also introducing standardized volume discounts to streamline a partner’s ability to negotiate large customer opportunities.
Netware
Going back to Novell’s pre-SUSE days, there is some tire-kicking around Novell’s client, which this new video shows how to crash.
Netware didn’t win the award for yesteryear’s favourite operating system, but it was at least mentioned.
urney. Among those mentioned: AmigaOS, Apple DOS, AS/400, Atari TOS, Burroughs MCP, CP/M, DR-DOS, the GEM graphical interface, KRONOS, MPE/iX, MP/M, Multics, Novell Netware, OASIS, OS/8, OS-9, OS/360, OS/400, Pick, Plan 9, PRIMOS, QNX, RDOS, RISC OS, RSTS, RSX-11, RT-11, SSP, TENEX/TOPS-20, TOPS-10, TRS-DOS, UCSD p-System, VAX/VMS, VM, VOS, Xenix and more.
NetWare 6.5 maintains the following certified relationship with Dell:
In terms of operating systems, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Storage Server are certified on the T610, as are Novell’s NetWare 6.5 and SUSE Linux 10 SP2 and Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 5.2. The server has flash-based embedded hypervisors for server virtualization, including special Dell editions of XenServer Express and XenServer Enterprise from Citrix Systems and ESXi 3.5 from VMware.
There was nothing here except this new reference page for SmartSYNC, which supports GroupWise.
SmartSYNC is the complete solution for synchronizing your Palm OS based handheld with Novell Groupwise®.
Governance/Management
Esj.com is preparing to write about Novell pretty shortly.
In future columns I will discuss CA’s information governance wares, as well as those of Novell and SGI. This installment focuses on a Boxborough, MA start-up with big ideas: Digital Reef Inc.
People
There is something called Human Capital Management Summit (also announced in here) and there will be Novell involvement.
A series of executive-level presentations designed around the summit theme of “Strategic Talent Management that Drives Business Execution in Any Economy” were delivered during the one and one-half day conference by a broad range of business leaders from HR and operations, including:
-- Microsoft, Mary Rose Becker, Chief of Staff of Learning and Readiness, SMSG Readiness -- Novell, Kathy Betts, Vice President of Human Resources
Novell was also mentioned here:
Everything Channel Announces the 2009 Five-Star Partner Program Guide
[...]
Novell Inc. Novell PartnerNet Security, Software Infrastructure, Storage
There are always those who are not Novell employees but are Novell-certified, such as this man.
A 1984 graduate of the American College of Technology, he earned a degree in computer electronics. Before joining the staff of Illinois Wesleyan’s Information Technology Department in 1998, Bailey was a former service manager for Thorn Services International and for STL Office Solutions, both in Bloomington. He was a certified Novell administrator for The Pantagraph, and helped custom build their computer system. Bailey also worked for Watts Copy Systems in Springfield, Ill., and for Tandy Electronics in Downers Grove, Ill.
Partners
The news helps in seeing the connections that Novell has with various other companies. Here is the latest set of reports/press releases which show the Novell-APTARE connection, the Novell-SHIFT connection, and the Novell-ANS connection:
With over 400 clients across the UK, ANS works closely with key partners Cisco, Dell, Microsoft, Novell, and Smart Identity to offer an unrivalled level of expertise and experience in the multifaceted industry of IT.
On the Novell-Cisco connection:
While Cisco bared collaboration and partnerships with various IT companies such as BMC Software, EMC, Emulex, Intel, Microsoft, NetApp, Novell, Oracle, Qlogic, Red Hat, VMware and Accenture, it announced that it would also be enter the blade server market, along with its entry into the unified computing system model.
Lastly, the Novell-Trustmarque connection :
The York, UK-based value-added reseller works with Microsoft and a string of security software house such as Symantec,McAfee and Novell.
Hardware
There are some hardware-related videos that come from Novell and here is one them which was added days ago. What happened to Novell’s close relationship with AMD? There is another new video about Novell and Intel.
There were some other articles about microchips where Novell was mentioned and Intel is at their centre.
“hundreds of thousands” of the new chips. More than 100 software applications keyed to Xeon 5500 chips were released Monday from companies such as Microsoft, Novell, Oracle and SAP.
Marketing
Novell has also pushed some more marketing, the latest examples being.
- Wolters Kluwer Italia – Novell Customer Success Video
- Kempinski Hotels – Novell Customer Success Story
This is part of a pattern. For details, see:
- Novell Speaks About Its Trashing of YouTube
- Novell Floods YouTube With Its Commercials
- Is YouTube’s “NovellVideo” a Novell AstroTurfer?
On the contrary, Novell sometimes uploads technical videos, which is dine. Here is the latest example from a few days ago.
Other News
In a couple of places, this press release about crowdsourcing was released to show Novell’s involvement.
Expanding its European presence, IdeaConnection is pleased to announce that Ms Marina Merlo has joined us as our Client Services Representative in Italy http://www.ideaconnection.com/about.html#marina. Ms Merlo has previously worked with Decision Lens, InnoCentive, Iomega, Kodak, Sony, Strategy Actualization, Google, Novell, Kodak, Creative, Skype, Bentley MicroStation, WPE, Iomega, Novell, and Bose.
Here is Novell mentioned in a formal press annoncement about a Web 2.0 expo:
Major vendors with booths at the show include Nokia, Salesforce.com, Amazon.com, eBay, IBM, Microsoft, Novell and Zoho.
Novell was mentioned briefly in this essay because Digium embraces something similar to the Fedora/RHEL and OpenSUSE/SLE business model.
Companies like Red Hat and Novell offer support subscriptions for enterprise customers who don’t want to walk the Linux path alone and now other open source vendors are getting into the act, too.
Here is the fate of one company (SGI) whose realisation of Free software was curtailed for too long. Novell’s fate might be similar:
This is not so complicated. SGI was a comet, soaring through the tech firmament during its brief moment of glory. But it’s only one in a list of former high-flyers to come crashing back to earth, a roster that includes the likes of Novell, Borland, WordPerfect, Digital Equipment, Wang, Data General-well, you get the point.
Novell was voted the least likely technology company to survive this year (in its current form). Sun may soon prove such prophecies to be not so far-fetched. █
