Bonum Certa Men Certa

Hovsepian, Russell, O’Keefe, Shah, Hale, Kavanagh, Semel, Ebzery and Many Others Leave Novell



Summary: A look at some of the latest confirmed departures, which appear in the press just weeks after the acquisition of Novell

Novell is pretty much collapsing, as expected. Some acquisitions are smooth and unshaky, but this one is not. Top managers are leaving in droves based on this one summary which says: "Several of Novell‘s top executives — including Ronald W. Hovsepian, Dana C. Russell, John K. Dragoon, Colleen A. O’Keefe, Scott N. Semel and James P. Ebzery — have exited the company following Attachmate‘s recent buyout of Novell. Sources say Novell has made additional staff cuts"



We wrote about Dragoon when he himself announced that he was leaving (here too). His Novell blog, just like many of the rest, has been silent since then. Novell.com became somewhat of a ghost town as even the PR staff says nothing (on average it used to have output once in a couple of days). Let us remember that Dragoon was CMO, where "M" stands for marketing. We wrote about his departure before and he was not alone among those who left just before the deal with AttachMSFT got finalised. It does not seem as though many or any of Novell's managers are going to stay as even SUSE got shaken up. All of them will probably get a compensation package that others will not. They don't need sympathy and those below them will probably just envy. People who sell out to Microsoft receive millions in bonuses while those who do all the real work receive nearly nothing.

Further down the management chain there are departures of significance. Alan Murray has also left, based on an article which says: "Murray was most recently vice president of product marketing at Novell Inc., where he oversaw the company’s Systems and Resource Management and Identity Security and Management units. Before joining Apperian, Welch was senior vice president for worldwide sales at Aveksa. He also held sales management and business development positions at Netegrity."

Another departure of potentially high impact is the departure of Naresh Shah, who becomes a vice president of engineering at one of Novell's old partners. To quote the Indian press, "Shah joins HP from Novell, where he served as Managing Director of Novell's India Development Centre (IDC) and Vice President of Global Engineering Strategy, responsible for overall product development activities."

"People who sell out to Microsoft receive millions in bonuses while those who do all the real work receive nearly nothing."Steve Hale is another one who is making his move. "Hale came on board U.K.-based Sophos from Novell, where he held the position of vice president of global channel sales in the security, systems management and operating platform group, specializing in driving Novell's "Workload IQ" partner sales and delivery approach to the Intelligent Workload Management marketplace, according to Hale's LinkedIn page." This is further verified here.

Kavanagh has left too and to quote The Australian, "James Kavanagh joins RSA's Brisbane sales team, responsible for accounts including Queensland government customers and leading financial services companies. He has toiled for Directory Concepts and Novell."

These people may not have left very recently, but they are in fact out. It is news to us. There are several more examples and this new article mentions Colleen O'Keefe. Novell's Vice President (one of them) is seen here or here:

Scott Lewis, Novell's Vice President of Partner Marketing, commented on this merger of two leading Novell (NOVL) services partners. "Novacoast's acquisition of Data Technique, Inc. is a significant channel development for Novell customers," said Lewis. "This merger combines the reach and service levels of two strong Novell Partners for our shared customers. Both companies have services capabilities that combine with Novell and other products to meet customers' needs for Intelligent Workload Management from physical to virtual to cloud computing environments."


So many vice presidents have left.

Well, another former Noveller is mentioned here and Novell's vice president Miguel de Icaza is confirmed to have left or been laid off now that he moves into startup mode, despite apparent trademark issues. This Microsoft MVP announced Trojarin and the first publication to do an interview with him about it is 'Microsoft press'. To quote one bit of this promotional piece (the Microsoft proponents still groom de Icaza):

But Mono never truly flowered under Novell, de Icaza said, especially in the mobile space. In fact, one of the reasons he is sanguine about the layoffs is that he and his Mono mates have been trying to spinoff the technology from Novell for more than a year.


This probably just says that Novell too was not particularly interested in Mono. Microsoft was. It still is.

Mono Microsoft brain

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

What 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Could Learn From Jimmy Kimmel About the 'Streisand Effect'
Lawyering up is risky and is usually doesn't work
Purchasing Concert Tickets in 2025 in Manchester: The "Modern" Experience
I recently spent a couple of days here testing the "terrain" in order to better understand how large public venues, for concerts rather than sporting events like football, currently "work"
 
Links 26/09/2025: "Digital Fatigue" and Slop Frenzy (Hype) Ruining Work Productivity, Culture, Languages
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Unwilling to Disclose or Explain How 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Pays for His SLAPPs Against Us (He Cannot Afford These), So We Are Escalating
Escalated in the British authorities
Linux is Replacing Apple
Apple is money down the drain. Not only are the gadgets overpriced; they cost a lot to maintain and keep going over time
"We don't have that kind of relationship with Microsoft. The only public key that every UEFI firmware is guaranteed to have is Microsoft's, and only Microsoft owns the private key."
This is how to sabotage GNU/Linux distros that Microsoft does not control
Slopwatch: linuxconfig.org, linuxsecurity.com, and Google's Promotion of the Worst and Most Prolific Slopfarms
Over in Google News it has been quite chaotic this past day
Gemini Links 26/09/2025: Reading RSS Feeds, ROOPHLOCH 202
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 25, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 25, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: More European Airports Shut Down Due to What Seems Like Russian Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: Amiga Revived and Hackers (UTF-8)
Links for the day
Links 25/09/2025: French Unions Want Another Strike, Super Typhoon Ragasa Kills Many
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Secure Boot' and Shim as Barrier or Obstacle to New GNU/Linux Users Trying to Escape Microsoft
Just as intended all along
Lovers and Haters
Always beware hate preachers and demagogues (or how they frame issues or whose fault they distract from)
Focusing on What People Have in Common Instead of Killing and Cancelling One Another
Men and women of both "wings" stand to gain a lot by working together on common interests
'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Enforcing Ethics (and It's Done by People on the Right, Not "The Leftists")
Smarter folks would leave social control media
Russia's Attack on Europe (and NATO) Will Worsen Censorship and Corruption in Europe
Can we still debate issues that predate the invasion of Crimea?
Lawyers Should Permanently Lose Their Licence (and Worse) for Using Chatbots in Legal Work
They not only waste people's money and time. They pollute the literature with falsehoods. They commit perjury. [...] Brett Wilson LLP sent the Judge nearly 1,000 pages of material (mostly mine, copied without proper permission) shortly before a short Hearing, which lasted less than an hour
GAFAM and MATA (Mythical, Metaphor) as Explained by analognowhere.com
They're instruments of suppression that sponsor the oppressor
We've Already Mentioned Who Nowadays Funds Garrett's SLAPP Against Us (Not Garrett), Let's Examine Who Sponsored His Litigation Partner (Other Than Microsoft Salaries There's a Buddy of Bill Gates)
it's alleged that the Serial Strangler from Microsoft got money from him
Florian Müller: Using Software Patents to Attack Software Developers, Agitate Against Patent Reform
He also promotes attacks on the German Constitution and laws
Reliance on Typepad Seems to Have Doomed the Voice of Software Patents and Patent Maximalists in PatentDocs
Follow the money
UEFI 'Secure Boot' is Potential Mayhem to the Environment (Older and Leaner Distros Stop Working)
creating new problems, disguised as "solutions" to problems that do not exist
Sometimes 'Cancel Culture' Backfires Badly
There's no such thing as "too much" coverage
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: Jimmy Kimmel Returns to Air (With Limitations) and London Stansted Airport Latest to Have Incident (Fire)
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, SPAM With Slop, and Google News Directs People to Read Slopfarms
why does Google News insist on still linking to prolific slopfarms?
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: New Game for Gemini Protocol, Eleven, and Network Solutions Woes
Links for the day
Punching People Doesn't Work
It makes nobody any safer
Look Ma, No "Cloud"
So far this year we've had an almost perfect uptime
Links 24/09/2025: Autism Blame-Shifting and Typhoon Ragasa Enters China
Links for the day
Buying From Oneself is Not Business Success
This isn't at all a joking matter even if you already laugh at the whole thing because your pension, savings etc. are tied to this scam at some level
This is How Microsoft's XBox and Entire Consoles (If Not Gaming) Ventures Will Ultimately Die
Ensure you can blame "Tariffs" (politics)? If not "hey hi", the fashionable go-to excuse when businesses fail?
What They Really Hate David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) for
Nothing to do with code
Smart People Won't Buy 'Smart' Cars
Imagine trying to sell someone a house (proper home) while insisting that it'll need to be demolished 5 or 10 years later, then rebuilt again from scratch on the same vacant lot
The Relationship Between IBM Red Hat and Microsoft, Visualised
This metaphor goes a long way (projects, collaborations, and outsourcing
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part III - Spying on Reporters' Families, Chaining Cases for Microsoft Employees Who Demand Censorship of Facts (Even Politely Expressed)
the time seems right to wrap up this introductory series
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
Links 24/09/2025: "NASA Moving Out of Entire Buildings as It's Gutted" and Purge of Online Critics (Opposing Fascism Becomes Unlawful)
Links for the day
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day