Summary: Today we take a rather exhaustive look at Novell videos and headlines from the past week and a half in order to help show its real strategic focus

TECHRIGHTS no longer focuses much on Novell, whose days appear to be numbered and emphasis on Free/open source software apparently decreases over time. Here we have a new video where Novell promotes a functionality of GroupWise and here is another very recent video about the expectation that Novell will be sold:

We have found several more new videos about Novell (e.g. [1, 2]), none of which covers SUSE or Linux. It's just not much of a focus anymore, at least not at Novell which wants to sell proprietary addons to it. Jeremy Allison, who quit Novell in protest after it had signed a patent deal with Microsoft, spoke to Novell's James Bottomley and published this video interview with him. Bottomley is employed by Novell to work on Linux.

Here is a new example of Novell promoting SUSE within a Fog Computing context, as further evidenced by this new press release and accompanying coverage derived from it [1, 2]. It's Fog Computing strategy at Novell and this new promotional video only helps prove this:



The title "Business Service Management Clears the Fog of Private Clouds" (Novell PR) is amusing because they put "Fog" in there next to 'private' cloud, which is a combination of two marketing terms ("private" and "cloud"). Novell takes this very seriously and even issues a press release to hype up 'private' cloud. It is self-serving marketing nonsense -- a survey designed to to sell products by generating seemingly-independent coverage, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

NovellFrance has some more new videos about Novell's Fog Computing direction (but it's in French):

i. Formation NOVELL : Administrateur Novell Netware 6.5 certifié CNA - EGILIA

ii. Novell Cloud Manager.mp4



From Novell in Germany too comes this new video about Fog Computing management. Dister is often used as a promoter of Fog Computing (creating one's own 'cloud' distro) and his account is doing it again, this time in Novell's PR blog which also accommodates IDG staff (e.g. guest post by Brett Waldman from IDG's IDC). It has become somewhat of a habit.

Here is Novell in another Fog Computing-centered article:

Part of Rixon's headaches included finding power and cooling, but outsourcing the physical infrastructure meant finding a new way to manage it. He started with Novell's Platespin orchestration tools and is now experimenting with Novell's new Cloud Manager product. "So yeah, it's all based on scripts now," he said.

Here is an example of Novell losing business due to falling behind Fog Computing giant Google:

Many users city-wide are complaining about lack of functionality and missing features as compared with the Novell system they're used to. Google says this is mostly attributable to lack of familiarity with the system, and that users have the same capabilities they had with Novell. LAPD's concerns lie more with security.

Security? Look not for Novell then. On the other hand, Novell does provide some auditing/authentication/identity management products whoze role was brought up in this recently-uploaded video ("Comments on Logging, Event Management and Certification on Novell products"):



Novell identity manager has just gotten into this federal contract.

*** $127,988 Federal Contract Awarded to Software House International WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 -- Software House International Inc., Somerset, N.J., won a $127,988.05 federal contract from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for Novell identity manager plus support.

What will happen when Novell is sold? Here is Novell quoted regarding identity management:

Many companies that aren’t subject to government regulation are unable to successfully implement and enforce policies for user storage partly because they rely on users to follow policies, and users don’t put IT policies at the top of their priority lists. Sophia rmanides, a product marketing manager at Novell (www.novell.com), says the right strategy for data governance is based on user identity, because it’s a person’s role or identity that makes his files relevant to an organization.

Looking at history a little, the news talks about this person who became an CNE when NOVL mattered:

I became a certified Novell engineer in 1992 and never looked back.

The local (Utah) press also wrote about Novell as a formerly formidable software company in the area. Well, those who write this try to portray Novell as a positive example, but they mention dead/dying companies like Novell and WordPerfect:

Firms like Novell and WordPerfect were making noise in their respective fields. Today, the state could be on the verge of another breakthrough, according to a Silicon Valley venture capitalist.

Ron Hovsepian, the President and CEO of Novell, invites people, but will anyone come? The company's appearance in the press these days provides a depiction of a schizophrenic company fighting while also embracing Fog Computing (depending whose fog it is). It also seems to have conflicting views on free/open source and proprietary, but that's not exactly new. Renaming products won't help much (Operations Center). ⬆