12.26.09
Novell News Summary – Part III: Novell Drives Nowhere Special
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. █
