10.24.12
IntraLinks Absorbs Novell Executives
Summary: Novell’s Hovsepian and Semel go to the same company, other Novell executives settle elsewhere
Sometimes we see headlines like “Novell President Bob Flynn to Give Keynote Address at GWAVACon EMEA,” but Novell, the company, is no more. We stopped tracking it around the time Hovsepian found a new home. Afterwards, “Ronald W. Hovsepian [Was] Named to ANSYS Board of Directors” and more recently, “IntraLinks Holdings, Inc. : IntraLinks Appoints Ronald W. Hovsepian New CEO” (he joined along with Semel from Novell [1, 2]).
Others found networking-related homes, e.g.:
Cambridge software company Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) has appointed former Novell exec Jim Ebzery to lead sales, services and marketing operations across the Americas.
Here is where spin chief Dragoon went:
Global education leader Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) today announced the appointment of John K. Dragoon to Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. Dragoon is based in HMH’s corporate headquarters in Boston, reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer Linda K. Zecher.
ownCloud has managed to snatch yet another SUSE person:
ownCloud Inc. recently announced that former SUSE executive and ownCloud co-founder Holger Dyroff has joined the company as vice president, sales and marketing. ownCloud Inc. is responsible for the popular open source file sync and share project. Dyroff studied law and business administration at University Erlangen-Nuremberg.
SUSE sure suffered some brain drain. Not much is left of Novell. Moreover, its patents went to Microsoft and Apple.
This site is turning 6 years old in just over a couple of week. A lot of time was spent here covering Novell. We mostly ignore SUSE stories at this stage. It’s in a mortal state anyway and ending the Novell threat is a mission largely accomplished (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Red Hat and others do not pay Microsoft patent tax). █
bfitz22 said,
October 25, 2012 at 12:18 pm
I’d say Novell is hardly “dead”. In the last year and a half Novell has released 64 new updates, and we’ve maintained our track record for security, reliability and engineering excellence – qualities that put us on the map in the first place.
In fact, just this week we launched our first cloud offering, which is receiving applause from tech journalists … see for yourself: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/it-unmasked/novell-achieves-cloud-control.html
To take three examples of executives leaving a company is a bit extreme to make the conclusion that the company is no longer noteworthy. I guess when long-time Google employees Marissa Mayer and Henrique de Castro took off to Yahoo!, Google pretty much died on the spot?
Novell has a lot to prove, but it continues to create noteworthy products that work and provide a secure environment for employees to be productive.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
October 25th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
The Marissa Mayer example is not applicable; it’s a totally different situation. As for Novell, it got sold.