Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part III: Pulse With Google, Finance, Virtualisation and More

Salt Lake Valley
Salt Lake Valley



Summary: Novell's proprietary business assets and what they have been up to in the past week

NOVELL news coverage has recently been overwhelmed by the big bid [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Novell's PR team has been very active despite all of this and it hardly even mentioned the bid, instead choosing to focus on fluff like SaaS and a survey that Novell was conducting itself in order to support its position, apparently.





Interestingly enough, Novell recently conducted a survey of its customers and discovered that 43% of them would be more inclined to consider and purchase an SaaS offering if it included just such a solution.


Pulse



Will Novell's Pulse be more connected to Wave than anyone has anticipated? Maybe.

Do the Wave: Rasmussen Dishes on Google’s New Collaboration Tool



[...]

What kind of other companies do you envision becoming Wave providers?

Rasmussen: For example, Novell (News - Alert). They have product coming up [in 2010] called Pulse, which they describe as an enterprise social network-type product. And they announced, and we’re working pretty hard with them, that they will support Wave. So when you’re insidePulse ( News - Alert) you can start a Wave inside Pulse using Novell technology.

If I’m a Google user, you can add me to that Wave, and we can Wave together even though you’re using Novell’s product and I’m using Google’s product.


At the same time, Google challenges GroupWise and costing Novell a lot of money. Novell's PR team is promoting the following new video (one of a series of two so far) about Pulse.



Misc.



The ballot which Microsoft uses to pretend [1, 2, 3, 4] that there is choice in the market (as long as Internet Explorer remains installed) gets Novell mentioned in IDG. Novell used to actually stand up for what's right and not be so supine.

Well, it's the direct result of a long-standing legal dilemma between Microsoft and the European Union. The whole issue began in 1993, brought on through a complaint by Novell that Microsoft's licensing arrangements with computer manufacturers violated Europe's competition rules.


Can Novell thrive by being a jack of all trades? That's the question this person asks.

One IT vendor that faces such a problem is Novell. It once had a clear market-leading position – in the 1980s and early 1990s Novell’s NetWare network operating system was the network operating system of choice for sharing files among workgroups. The ascendancy of Windows, Linux, the IP protocol, among other things, led to a fall in demand for NetWare and left Novell seeking a new identity.


Hungary still considers buying from Novell, which makes the following predictions.

Software distributor Novell projects 5%-10% revenue growth in 2010 in Hungary even though it sees the Hungarian IT market expanding only modestly during the year.


Can Hungary press on with a company other than Microsoft and Novell now that standards are required?

Finance



Mentioned some weeks ago was Ron Hovsepian's ridiculous bonus, which takes up a lot of the revenue of this ~3,900-person company. IDG has this to say on the subject:

Novell president and CEO Ron Hovsepian's total compensation fell 17% in 2009, amid declining annual revenue and a wider net loss.

Hovsepian received compensation in fiscal 2009 valued at $5.7 million, compared to $6.9 million in 2008, according to documents filed late last week with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.


People concentrate on the relative decline, but not on the absolute value. What did Hovsepian actually do which makes him deserving of this "compensation" (euphemism for bonus)?

In other financial news we have:

● Novell Zenwork Asset Management Renewal

● U.S. Stocks Rise as Jobs Report, Takeovers Lift Confidence

● ETF Preview: Mixed Early Action for Broad Funds; Novell Offer Could Lift Tech

● The S&P 500's Biggest Movers

● Notable Biggest S&P Stock gainers (Sprint, YUM, SWN, NOVL, WYNN, NVDA, ODP)

● Interesting Options Volume for Novell Inc (NOVL)

Networks



An anonymous writer recalls "cleaning up after a networking vendor's bad behavior". Novell is mentioned right at the start.

Back in the late '80s, I worked for a group specializing in Novell networks. Sharing network resources among PCs was a new and upcoming field, and the Novell operating system was quickly turning into the standard among small businesses. We had a prospective new client in an upscale community: a law firm that wanted to replace its current vendor and its network.


Virtualisation



This new article from David Strom quotes Novell on the subject of virtualisation.

"If you lose one of these servers entirely, you could have a problem, particularly since on average, eight or more VMs are typically running on a single box," says Carl Drisko, a Novell executive who specializes in virtualization.


Novell has this new video promoting Intelligent Workload Management on YouTube and the state of XenApp for Windows 2008 is also worth mentioning.



Mail



Novell's GroupWise is included in the list of products which CompanionLink supports and in YouTube there is a new video featuring bits from GroupWise.



People



Novell's CTO becomes the W3C's CEO and this is covered in many more places [1, 2, 3] including the in-print media.

Filling a position left open since 2008, former Novell CTO Jeffrey Jaffe has taken on the role of chief executive officer for the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).


Here is Jaffe's first post at the W3C blogs. Can he be trusted?

Additionally, there's this person being appointed:

Before that he spent five years running his own Australian-based consultancy specialising in IT security, VoIP services and training. Stevens is also a certified Cisco instructor, a certified Novell engineer, and a qualified Microsoft trainer.


Partners



Novell makes some more links around India.

Novell today announced that the Novell India Partner Academy, a training programme exclusively developed for Novell's partners to assist them in selling, distributing and supporting Novell's suite of enterprise IT solutions and held for the first time in Colombo, was a major success. Novell partners graduating from the training will be able to provide pre-sales consulting and professional services in addition to post-sales support and training to their own customers.


There is also this:

The IDenium server integrates into Microsoft AD, Novell eDirectory and Citrix, providing great flexibility in deployment and user management.


Novell gets mentioned in a couple of press releases [1, 2] and an article about Utah.

Marketing



Novell is promoting Identity Management with "guest blogs" [1, 2] and security problems are found too (but hardly mentioned anywhere).

The following new videos were created/uploaded by Novell some days ago:



It is believed that SAP might buy Novell or just parts of Novell. ⬆

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Tower of Babel
More is not better
When Large American "Tech" Companies Can No Longer Complete Payroll
In spite of several very large waves of Dell layoffs, which the media reported on, it seems like they are still experienceng payroll problems, maybe that's why money is being borrowed
Writing for Good
The Web has an abundance of junk
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVIII - Microsoft Doesn't Want People to Speak About Microsoft-Controlled Restricted ('Secure') Boot, a Silent Injustice and Back Door/Kill Switch
Can we please stop treating this as normal or acceptable?
 
Links 02/11/2026: Bracing for US Election and New Zealand Has November 7 Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/11/2026: Beginning With Gemini Protocol, Looking for CoCs, and Slop for Local Data
Links for the day
NDA-Compatible PIPs and RAs at IBM Red Hat
We welcome Red Hat whistleblowers who can share with us the NDA/s passed their way
GNU/Linux Rises in African's Largest Population
15% in Nigeria [...] A country with over 200 million people
The Register MS Has Just Published a Fake Article With "AI" 28 Times in the Page (Communist Party of China Entity Paid for That)
In IRC, someone has just pointed out that an article at The Register MS repeats Microsoft's lies about its financial situation
Windows Down to All-Time Low, Says statCounter, While Microsoft Tells 60,000 Workers They're No Longer Necessary
Microsoft must be feeling "salty" right now
A British Uphill Battle to Eliminate Microsoft and Its American Back Doors
There are places of work and homes where GNU/Linux is installed and regularly used, not as a mere hobby but as a hyper-productive, practical tool
Technical Coverage of US Elections
When elections are done by computers and decided by computers it becomes a tech issue
By Killing the "Linux News Section" in Softpedia (the Most Popular Section, Based on Its Editor) Softpedia Killed Itself
Enjoy Ballmer
Linkspam in "It's FOSS" Today (and It's Not Even FOSS)
free-to-access ad for some dodgy companies and the URLs are 'tampered' for cashback
Links 02/11/2026: Slop Destroying Mathematics and "Democracy is Not on the Ballot" (in US)
Links for the day
Celebrating Photography, Celebrating Life, Celebrating Magnificent Humanity, Not Plagiarism Disservices
Any time we adopt or spread slop imagery we are participating in the problem
Year-Long Celebration Starts on Saturday
This coming Saturday we turn 20
On Desktops/Laptops, Clownflare Sees Windows at Under 60% and GNU/Linux at 15% This Past Weekend
Impressive if accurate
Microsoft Lunduke is Slop
Microsoft Lunduke is just trying to stir up hatred
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVII - Shooting the Messengers (People Who Oppose Microsoft Back Doors), Even Across the Atlantic
Keep this in mind later this week when a dictator either discredits the voting or covertly tampers with the voting process
Microsoft Wants 60,000 Employees Gone (One Way or Another)
At IBM, 15% of staff got marked as candidates for removal; at Microsoft it's almost 30%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 01, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, November 01, 2026
Jean-Claude Van Linus
Claude talking?
Gemini Links 01/11/2026: OpenBSD, Broken MicroHDMI, Nextcloud, and More
Links for the day
IBM Vapourware on a Budget (to Grab Bailouts From US Taxpayers)
Anderon is the sort of thing that makes IBMers uncomfortable
Links 01/11/2026: Digital Minimalism and "Palantir Cofounder Announces Cruel Plan to Breed Thousands of Lab Monkeys for Medical Experiments"
Links for the day
Microsoft Accenture in Trouble, Accenture’s Debt Skyrockets
Seeing a wave of adoption of Free software in Europe, it's not exactly shocking that "consultants" from Microsoft Accenture are no longer in demand
Microsoft Says Its "Goodwill" Value Has Been Declining for Years, But It Also Claimed That Doubled in One Year
Wall Street deserves far more criticism or scepticism (at the very least)
SkyChatz: From Nothing to #2 in IRC (in Less Than a Year)
Second only to Libera.Chat
Making Up Words or Inventing a Vocabulary
Or why Large Language Models are useless
Assange on What Lula Means to Free Press
Here in the UK we've also found our 'Lulas'
GNU/Linux is No Underdog (But There Are Attempts to Put It "To Sleep")
There's a moral imperative
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVI - The "Law and Order" Candidate Who Crushes Both Law and Order and Even Rejects Election Outcomes (Insurrection Follows)
A world without real technical security is a world void of democracy, justice, and human rights
Links 01/11/2026: Malaysian Media Perishing, France Belatedly Identifies Social Control Media as Weaponised Yellow Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/11/2026: "Trick-or-Treating seems to be dead, at least in our neighborhood"; BaseFree Numerical System and Human Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 31, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, October 31, 2026
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: MangoWM, Qutebrowser and Codeberg, Plugh
Links for the day
Massive Cuts Inside Microsoft (the Media Does Not Talk About That)
It is in many ways like IBM a decade ago
In US Government Sites, GNU/Linux Measured at New All-Time High of 7% (or About 10% Across Desktops/Laptops Alone)
There's no doubt GNU/Linux is growing
Intel Has Just Lost in One Single Day Over 150 Billion Dollars in 'Value' (Market Cap), Intel is Also Over 50 Billion Dollars in Debt
This really says a lot about Wall Street and the slop bubble, doesn't it?
They Hate Him Because He's Effective
Effective voices invite more aggressive censorship attempts
Audience Growing in Spite of the Deluge of Webslop
We probably benefit from the rejection of LLM slop
The Munich FUD Tactics (Microsoft Modus Operandi): Microsoft-Connected Sites Claim Denmark Failed With Free Software, But That's Not What Actually Happened
With Microsoft, it almost always boils down to politics
Links 31/10/2026: John Romero Comeback After Being Shafted by Microsoft, Google Faces Criminal Probe Over Deforestation in Finland
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Rambling on Self-hosting and Ad Video Screens Don’t Make Money
Links for the day
Can't Trust Big Banks, Let's Try 'Bros' Instead?
But let's blame "North Korea"
IRC's Growing Popularity in 2026
No company controls or profits from IRC, it is in the Commons
"AI" as Surrogate for Debt and Distraction From Computing (Bots Described as "Agents" and/or Any Form of "Intelligence" is More Like a Religion)
We're letting people without even college degrees game the "market" (Wall Street) by lying to it
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXV - Election Integrity at a Time of Back Doors and Very Severe Bugs in UEFI
How dare British media comment on insurrection following a US election?
"The Judge Accepted That Mrs Schestowitz Had Been the Subject of a Vicious Campaign of Online Harassment"
That's consistent with how they men treat women
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Hallowe'en and "Thinking About People"
Links for the day
Links 31/10/2026: The Hinge on Apple's Constantly Breaking New Foldable iPhone Was "Built With Slop", Slop Causes Cash Squeeze GAFAM
Links for the day
Amazon's Debt Skyrockets by Almost 100 Billion Dollars in 9 Months
On top of that there is additional (secret, kept stealth by accounting tricks) debt
Google Illegally Destroyed a Quarter Million Trees Without a Permit for a Hypothetical Project That Might be Cancelled, Debt Has Soared by 30 Billion Dollars in 3 Months ($10 Billions Borrowed Per Month)
Google is bleeding from slop
Slavery at Microsoft
illegal if true
Many People "Left" Red Hat This Month, Including Yesterday
We already saw this with SUSE
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: "Where I Draw the Line With" Slop Plagiarism and "Nobody Cares That You're Leaving Proton" (Over Slop)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 30, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, October 30, 2026