Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part III: Novell Drives Nowhere Special

Long road



Summary: Dull week passes by, but we pick up and present some of the minor developments surrounding Novell

IT is a holiday, so this one will be short.



Finance



Novell was mentioned occasionally in light of Red Hat's good results.

Rival Novell, Inc. (NOVL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating), which is the world's second largest seller of Linux software, earlier this month reported a wider fourth quarter net loss, hurt by goodwill impairment and restructuring charges. However, the company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, beat analysts' estimate as did its quarterly revenues. The company also forecast first quarter revenue above analysts' estimate.


More on Novell's "reogs", which are a lot more than just that:

Novell announced that in response to changing market conditions it was reorganising its existing four divisions, or units, down to two.


There is a new and very detailed report about Novell, titled "turning the Linux market into a healthy duopoly"

Key Chapters of the report:

Linux: revenue and strategy driver

An increasing slice of Novell's revenues

Linux in two different guises: SLES/D and OES

17% of profitable revenues from SLE

19% of profitable revenues from OES

Positive sales feedback loop driver

Via customers and (in)direct channels

Via SLE as well as OES

Increased reliance on Microsoft

Microsoft has proven critical to Novell's Linux growth

Novell's reliance on Microsoft is increasing and distorting

Opening up the OpenSUSE project


This report is selling for $1,350.

Netware



Novell's networking products received a little mention in this article which was titled "The year of AJAX and REST services?"

That iffy emerging technology was Microsoft Windows, and the versions that made me really jump in after years of skeptical puttering were Windows 3 and Windows NT. Lest you think that was an easy call, at the time the industry press was all over Novell networking and IBM OS/2 as the serious up-and-coming technologies for business. I did hedge my bets; I kept OS/2 available as a boot option on my DOS/Windows machine, and I worked with a client whose product used Novell networks at hotels, but my main focus was Windows.


A small portion on CNEs, whose skills lose a lot in terms of value:

As the support costs for this model grew, companies began to realize that perhaps the distributed model was not the panacea it was purported to be, and networked computing came back in vogue (Remember when everyone wanted to become a Microsoft MSCE or Novell Certified Network Engineer?)


An old and familiar comparison appears again:

Microsoft was late to the market, but that didn't stop the company from taking over other technology areas in the past. And that history led to some comparisons between VMware and Novell, the former software king that Microsoft dethroned in the 1990s.


Virtualisation



Matt Richards from Novell has published this post where he is promoting his company a little.

In fact, Novell research has found up to 50 percent of support issues result from problems introduced during product installation.


Another example:

5 Things Every CEO Should Know About Cloud Computing



[...]

Ron Hovsepian, President and CEO of Novell, highlights five important elements in an article on Forbes.com....


Novell as a Xen backer:

Although x64 hypervisors are heading for commoditisation, they are not there yet. Even when they reach that stage, there is no guarantee that customers will be able to switch from one to the other easily. That raises an important question about the future of the open source Xen hypervisor and the virtualisation platforms built on it by Xen's three main backers, Citrix, Oracle and Novell.


Identity Management, Mail, and Insecurity



A journalist from Latvia has uploaded this new video covering Novell's business activities around identity management.



There were also tiny portions about Groupwise support and SUSE flaws.

People and Partners



Novell and F5 Networks are seen as potentially connected by the appointment of Gary Abad.

Abad was most recently VP Channel Sales for Polycom, and has also served at Novell and Symbol Technologies.


More here:

Gary Abad will take the reins at the application delivery networking company, following his most recent position as vice president of Americas channel sales at Polycom.

[...]

Abad held sales management and business development at Novell and Symbol Technologies, which is now a part of Motorola.


Novell was mentioned in some press releases that shed light on existing partnerships.

With this authorization, Koenig adds another feather to its already impressive list of authorizations which includes: Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Red Hat, Novell, LPI, CIW, CWNP, EC-Council and SCP.


Marketing



Promotions for BrainShare 2010 are made more visible as Novell tries to make it a reality. Novell has just made another video in addition to 2 previous ones [1, 2]. "20TEN" is the motto.

Speaking of videos, it looks like an older one about SUSE has been pushed into YouTube again and Novell is also mentioned in the latest Linux News Log.



That's about it for this week.

Recent Techrights' Posts

In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
 
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025