Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part III: Mostly Videos, Kablink 2.0 Release, and Utah Event

Bryce Canyon



Summary: The rest of Novell's news (from two weeks)

THE past week has been slow and the company's staff has been mostly dormant, so let us start with a couple of new videos. Novell carries on posting instructional videos -- a practice it has been following for several months now. This first one is about ZENworks:





And another one:



Finance



The following person claims that Novell's debt is $121 million. Can this figure be confirmed?

To manage default risk, Kaufman sticks with solid companies that have a lot of cash on their balance sheets and are generating free cash flow. A favorite holding is a bond from software maker Novell(NOVL Quote). The company has $1 billion in cash and only $121 million in debt. "I am not interested in distressed debt," Kaufman says. "I am interested in getting double-digit yields from high-quality issuers."


Here is a nice recollection from one former Novell employee:

[O]ne of Red Hat's early investors was...Novell, an investment that made Novell over $100 million. That's foresight!


Novell's performance currently looks poor compared to Red Hat's.

The enterprise Linux maker revealed some stonkingly good quarterly figures last week, laughing in the face of the global downturn and making the Linux vendor that relies on Microsoft's trust fund money (Novell, in other words) look like a right old Charlie.


Novell suffered a bit of a blow some days ago.

NOVL Novell Inc. -6.49% 78% (18 of 23) 17


Older Days



Here is a new opinion piece that compares Novell to Leeds United. It is also mentioned here.

Novell would be Leeds United They used to be huge when I were a lad.


More memories of Novell in:

i. A Jacobian Value Search: Invert, Always Invert!

Screening the lower EV/Assets ratios results in a list of many fairly healthy software businesses with excellent balance sheets. I have posted at length on Novell Inc. and RealNetworks, but Microsoft and Cray Computer (a software business disguised as a hardware business) also look good to me in the longer run.


ii. WinInfo Short Takes: Week of July 13, 2009

"I just gave up," Schmidt said, while simultaneously forgetting about the OS beating Microsoft handed Novell when he ran that company.


Novell's NetWare gets labeled a "dying IT skill". It makes #2 in the list (among a total of 10).

2: Novell NetWare

Novell’s network operating system was the de facto standard for LANs in the 1990s, running on more than 70% of enterprise networks. But Novell failed to compete with the marketing might of Microsoft. Novell tried to put up a good fight by acquiring WordPerfect to compete with Windows Office, but that move failed to ignite the market, and Novell eventually sold WordPerfect to Corel in 1996. Novell certifications, such as Certified Novell Engineer, Master Certified Novell Engineer, Certified Novell Certified Directory Engineer, and Novell Administrator, were once hot in the industry. But now, they are featured in Foote Partners’ list of skills that decreased in value in 2008. Hiring managers want Windows Server and Linux skills instead.


Virtualisation



PlateSpin makes a rather rare appearance here.

PlateSpin’s partner program will be amalgamated into Novell’s channel structure from November 1 as part of efforts to bring the two organisations closer together.

PlateSpin channel manager Asia-Pacific, Mathew Donoghue, said the virtualisation management vendor had also recently struck distribution agreements with Novell’s Australian distribution partners, Express Data and Open Channel Solutions (OCS).


Novell also promotes this virtualisation video tutorial from Novell's Alan Murray.

Mail and Collaboration



Novell's Kablink 2.0 has been released, so its employees make some noise about it.

Kablink, the Novell-sponsored open source platform that provides collaboration tools that can be integrated into every business, today announced the availability of Kablink 2.0 with teaming functionality. With Kablink, users can integrate the most popular collaboration tools (blogs, wikis, forums, microblogs) into their infrastructure and harness the power of their knowledge workers under one standardized platform. Check out this video with Kablink Community manager, Brent McConnell, which discusses the evolution of enterprise collaboration and offers a first look at Kablink 2.0.


There is also this new video from Novell.

GroupWise gets rejected publicly.

The IT department and key members across the user community started evaluating the technology options. The selection team considered two options—one to consider alternate solutions such as Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, etc., independent of existing technology stack in the company. Second, evaluate technology options from the cost and other benefits that can arise at the stack level. After thorough deliberations, the team ruled out Novell GroupWise as an option because of substantial investments in user and IT skills.


Here is an article about Gwava.

Canadian-based Novell GroupWise collaboration software security software provider Gwava has selected French enterprise search engine company Exalead's CloudView OEM Edition to enrich the search functions of the Gwava e-mail archiving platform.


There is also this new video tutorial for GroupWise 8.



More progress on Novell and E-mail is to be found in this updated page about Pegasus Mail 4.51.

Pegasus Mail is an e-mail client that interacts directly with the user, allowing mail to be sent, read, filed, printed and otherwise manipulated through a graphical interface. Small and fast, it can be left running permanently on the workstation and includes powerful tools to notify the user when new mail arrives. It can run on single Windows computers, or local area networks - it has special support for Novell NetWare LANs that allow it to operate intuitively and with almost no maintenance.


People



Jacqueline de Rojas quit Novell some months ago and according to this report she lands in McAfee -- the company some people speculated would merge with Novell.

McAfee has announced the appointment of Jacqueline de Rojas as vice president of UK and Ireland.

Joining from Novell where she was managing director for the UK and Ireland, de Rojas will report directly to David Quantrell, president, EMEA at McAfee, who was appointed in January this year.


Here is more reminiscing of the embarrassment Novell's Jeffrey Merkey has become.

This is not the first time Wales is said to have intervened with the content on Wikipedia's pages. In March of 2008, former Novell chief scientist Jeffrey Merkey accused Wales of extortion in a statement to the Associated Press.


The news about Calix got mentioned last month, but here it is again:

Robert Checketts has gained extensive experience in the past 25 years with successful start-ups and companies in the technology, telecommunications, and networking industry. He joins Calix from Juniper Networks where as director of Americas marketing he supported the full range of Juniper products across all markets. In addition, Checketts has held executive marketing positions at Cisco Systems, Yosemite Technologies, Lucent, Sun Microsystems, and Novell.


More Novell staff on the move:

He spent 11 years at Novell in a variety of Asia-Pacific roles.

Martin began his career in South Australia in 1983 with Abraxas Computers and then joined Canon Australia.

He moved to one of Canon's largest resellers, Q-Dos Computers, and was recruited to as state manager for WordPerfect in South Australia, moving to Novell when it acquired WordPerfect.


Old bits of wisdom from Noorda:

The Internet has provided a major shift in the way we work. Less than 20 years ago, there was a comment by Ray Noorda, the CEO of Novell - "If you don't have an e-mail address on your business card, you will be considered a nobody" and most people did not believe it.


Some more sightings of past Novellers:

Before joining InterSystems, Matz was president and CEO of Route Link for eight years, a leading systems integration and groupware development company that he founded and managed. Prior to founding Route Link, he was vice president of Mashov Computers, the exclusive Novell distributor in Israel, where he was responsible for Novell's Israeli operations. His background includes more than twenty years of technical, marketing and sales management experience in the IT industry.


Commercial Relationships



Here is Novell discussed as a competitor:

During the segment, Boroditsky discusses Passlogix’s continued success despite direct competition from large companies like IBM, CA and Novell. He attributes Passlogix’s growth, with nearly doubled revenues in the past two years, to the role strong customer service plays in swaying customers away from large companies.


Novell is also listed as a friend.

Concentric Managed Backup offers a comprehensive platform support which includes Novell, NetWare, Linux, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, IBM, AIX, IBM i and VMware, as well as application support including Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, Cluster Services, Oracle, and other applications.


Lastly, Novell's relations with other companies are mentioned briefly in a few more places, but none of this is notable.

Marketing



Novell's account in YouTube has spewed out a lot of promotional videos such as this one of Matt Richard that Novell also promoted here. Other new examples include success stories. Probably a little older is the following addition.



Utah



Novell is quite important to Utah's profile and it has just hosted an event that produced a lot of coverage. There is a special award granted to top "young companies".

The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum (UVEF) today announced winners of its 2009 “Top 25 Under Five” Awards spotlighting outstanding Utah entrepreneurs and start-up companies. Award recipients were recognized today at ceremonies held at the Provo Novell Campus. InnoVentures Captial Partners and The Daily Herald sponsored the event. UVEF recognized ZAGG, Inc. (www.zagg.com), a designer, manufacturer and distributor of protective clear coverings and accessories for electronic and hand-held devices, as the number one performer among Top 25 nominees.


More here:

ZAGG was recognized as number one among the 25 finalists for 2009 at ceremonies held at the Novell Provo Campus. Other companies in the top five were Imagine Learning, OrangeSoda, Allegiance, and Aribex.


SEO.com claimed bragging rights too.

Crowds gathered into the Novell building in Provo, Utah to celebrate and honor entrepreneurs and some of the state's top companies under five years old. In a bright contrast to the current economic struggle, optimism reigned here where companies were boasting both recent and future success.


Here is a video from the event (also identical here).



This is the summary/description:

PROVO, Utah July 9, 2008 The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum (UVEF) today announced winners of its 2009 Top 25 Under Five Awards spotlighting outstanding Utah entrepreneurs and start-up companies. Award recipients were recognized today at ceremonies held at the Provo Novell Campus. InnoVentures Captial Partners and The Daily Herald sponsored the event. UVEF recognized ZAGG, Inc. (www.zagg.com), a designer, manufacturer and distributer of protective clear coverings and accessories for electronic and hand-held devices, as the number one performer among Top 25 nominees.


More Utah publicity for Novell can be found in:

i. Utah Job Skills & Digital Literacy Training Program Reaches Milestone

Skilled2Succeed provides the final link in the chain from job retraining to meaningful advancement in the workplace. Certified program graduates have been placed in professional positions at companies like DirectPointe, Coldwell Banker and Novell, among others. “Everyone pushes down, but Skilled2Succeed lifts us up,” stated budding artist and Skilled2Succeed graduate Dorothy Boyle.


ii. Utah's Nu Skin doing something right ... for 25 years

"It's funny because even here in our community, if you go back 20, 25 years, the stars of the local business environment would have been WordPerfect, would have been Novell, would have been Geneva Steel," CEO Truman Hunt said in an interview from his office in the striking building that seems to want to define downtown Provo.


And that's about all for now.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Televisions Have Become Billboards
Bottom line: you get what you pay for
 
PIPs Are a Setup: They Set Workers Up to Fail While Working Their Arse Off Before Getting Kicked (Out) in the Arse
Malicious and exploitative
SLAPP Censorship - Part 181 Out of 200: This is Really More Like Brett Wilson LLP v Schestowitz (Using Money From American Slop Companies, Plagiarism Pushers)
We approach the parts where we explain that the Application to the Court with Garrett's name on it was instead complaining about fair criticism of the combative law firm (irrelevant to any injunctions) as if it was impermissible to explain what it had done - and still does - to my wife and I
It Sometimes Feels Like Slop Companies Are Committing Online/Digital Crimes
"GPT" out of control
Gemini Links 13/09/2026: Why Omarchy is "Plain Disgusting" and "AI Slop" and Why "Plain Text To Do List" Rocks
Links for the day
Links 13/09/2026: Scam Altman Admits Issues (Financial), Rival Says Stop Slop (Plagiarism)
Links for the day
Windows Down to New Lows as Switzerland's Federal Government Abandons Microsoft (Where Feasible for Now)
That's how it starts...
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 12, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, September 12, 2026
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft as "Voluntary Separation Agreement" (or PIP)
the man who kept lying about the layoffs has just left the company
The Cyber Show on Media Clickbait About Slop as 'Existential Threat' and Derek Thompson's Response to That
Ignore the hype, focus on real news
Links 12/09/2026: "Revolt Is Here" Against Slop and "Top Chinese Court" Cracks Down on Slop That's Fake/Misleading
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/09/2026: Rants About Slop, Switching From QWERTY, and Why TVs Are 'Cheap'
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 180 Out of 200: A Third Act, (Mis)Using Your Client's Application to the Court for Your Own Purposes as a Law Firm (Reputation Management and Censorship)
How much can a lawfare firm get away with?
Canonical Has Withdrawn Ubuntu 24.04.5 Installer Due to a Critical Bug Connected to Microsoft-Controlled Restricted Boot and TPM
already breaking systems running GNU/Linux [...] Who asked for TPM in Linux?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 179 Out of 200: Using One's Clients to Save Face at Their Expense
Who's being served really?
Switzerland's Software Freedom/Digital Sovereignty is Improving as People Move to GNU/Linux
Well done to them
Links 12/09/2026: "U.S. Debt Surpasses $40 Trillion" and "Trump Wants to [Illegally] Bribe Voters."
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/09/2026: Readjusting, Fighting Sleep, and FreeBSD bhyve
Links for the day
Matt Mullenweg Got the 'Linus Treatment' or 'RMS Treatment'
"back, but not in charge any more..."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 11, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, September 11, 2026
Earlier This Year Microsoft's Chief Liar Frank Shaw Lied About the Layoffs. Now He's Leaving.
he's nowhere near retirement age
Gemini Links 11/09/2026: Small Things and "Hitching Your Wagon"
Links for the day
Links 11/09/2026: Tristan Buckmaster Ripped Off by Slop, Social Control Media Spreads Hatred for Profit
Links for the day
Animals Smarter Than Chatbots
Quack quack goes the chatbot
Why Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) Won't Work
American companies don't follow laws, they work around them
IBM Isn't Reporting Layoffs, But It Removes Tens of Thousands of People From Its Workforce
Red Hat and IBM already mark people for removal
"A Tale of Two Antónios" Will Resume Soon
In November the site turns 20
Links 11/09/2026: Cyberattack in Berlin (Windows/Microsoft TCO) and Hype About Slop as 'Existential' Something; Scam Altman et al Caught Stealing/Plagiarising "Mathematical Breakthrough"
Links for the day
Microsoft/GNOME 9/11
Garrett and Graveley (Microsoft/GNOME) will have a lot to explain
Net Gain of 50 Gemini Capsules in Just One Month
a big jump in just one month
Keeping Linux Reliable
If Linux becomes a lot more reliable in the future, it'll be an "hey hi" miracle. If Linux becomes a lot less reliable in the future, we'll know why and who is responsible for it.
9/11 Was a National Event, Not an International Event
They insist that back doors will "save lives"
Very Sloppy PR From a Dying IBM, Company in Disarray and in Need of Distractions
IBM could really use distractions right now
Cyber Show on the Fallacy of Salary/Ego as a Function of Wisdom in the Era of Pyramid Schemes (Cheating People Using Buzzwords and Complicit Media)
"the remuneration fallacy and the role of reluctance as a negative feedback force."
What a Price-Fixing Cartel Can Look Like
If your prices increase five-fold or ten-fold and so do your revenues/income, what does that tell us?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 178 Out of 200: Explaining to Your American Clients That Spending 130,000+ United States Dollars on a Single Hearing in Another Continent Means the UK's National Archives Will Retain in Perpetuity What Your Spouse or Girlfriend Said
Balabhadra (Alex) Graveley should ask Garrett how much money he has lost so far
EPO's Local Staff Committee Munich Organises General Assembly Next Week, the Goal is to Oust the Corrupt President and Derail His Unlawful Agenda
They're aiming to show Campinos the door
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 10, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, September 10, 2026
Latest IBM Gossip is, Over 25,000 People to be PIPed (by Year's End)
That figure, 10%, is different from 15% (what we saw a lot). 10% is over 25,000 staff.
Solidarity at EPO
"Many colleagues have made personal and professional sacrifices by participating in the ongoing strike and work-to-rule action"
Gemini Links 11/09/2026: Culture Stuck, Robot Symphony, and Back to Geminispace
Links for the day