Bonum Certa Men Certa

Shrinking of Novell

Novell logo bitten



Summary: A post-Attachmate acquisition Novell and the former CEO's remark about employee arrogance

IT was just under a year ago that Novell seemed destined to be sold. The sale was assured a few months later and the acquisition closed about 4-5 months ago, whereupon many employees were let loose. Ron Hovsepian lost his job after he had failed to fulfil his role as CEO and only 4 years after shaking Steve Ballmer's hand a company with over 4,000 employees became more or less liquidated, with its patents being passed to Microsoft and some of its staff being absorbed inside Attachmate.



Now that an unemployment epidemic strikes the West, reports give this personal account of a formal Novell employee:

The numbers didn't fall fast enough for Robert Ahlstrom. He spent four years working for the software company Novell - one of Provo Utah's most prominent businesses. Novell laid off more than 800 people in May, sending shockwaves through the city.

"My boss, he called me into the office and told me: 'You're one of the people that's gonna be laid off,'" Robert says.

Robert says he's lucky - he's getting severance pay. Now he spends his days looking for work -- and working on his baseball swing.


In last week's news we also found former Novell staff and former advisors finding themselves in other companies. former Novell CEO Eric Schmidt is quoted as saying some interesting things:

On lessons learned from working at Sun and Novell: “What happens when you’re in a successful company is you develop a certain kind of arrogance.” There’s always someone who can undercut you with a cheaper machine that works just as well. At Google, they understand this, because most of their price lists start at “Free.”


Several years ago we wrote about that particular arrogance that harmed Novell. A columnist at IDG wrote a column about it.

It is valuable to learn about people who are leaving the company or got laid off as it often provides insight into the internal issues. Consider this other new report which says:

Burnham joins Ogletree after seven years in-house at Novell Inc., where she most recently served as vice president of global employment law.


Employment at Novell or Attachmate is perhaps not much of a priority now. As we recently pointed out, Novell products are currently being decommissioned if not improperly maintained. It is unlikely that Novell-affiliated people or products will ever grow. Right now all the 'juice' that's left in Novell is merely being squeezed out, starting with those patents Novell gave to Microsoft through CPTN. What a waste and what a predictable mess. Novell oughtn't have gone into Microsoft's bed in the first place; it had a fine desktop distribution with major clients, but it blew it all away, so Canonical won. It ought to be added that all those Mono developers who got laid off are not really visible in that startup called Xamarin. It seems like a non-starter. Their business model is providing Microsoft-esque services or products to developers and users who are trying to distance themselves from Microsoft and its platform. Similarly, Novell was trying to offer a Microsoft-flavoured GNU/Linux to companies and individuals whose goal was to get rid of Microsoft.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

How We Process Screenshots of Slop to Suitably Tag Them as Slop
everything is a single command
 
Links 11/08/2025: Meritless Twitter Suspensions and Disney Scraps Deepfake Dwayne Johnson
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Upgrading Debian Bookworm and Better Quality PDFs From Gemini Pages
Links for the day
Currys PCWorld Lied a Decade Ago, 10 Years Later It Still Effectively Voids Your Warranty for Installing GNU/Linux Despite It Being Increasingly Mainstream
Microsoft gatekeepers
Team GNOME Has Libeled Me for Nearly 20 Years
we are not dealing with sane people
Experience With Airlines in 'Web Sites' and in 'Apps'
In a lot of ways, Stallman Was Right about what JavaScript would turn out to be
Open Does Not Mean Free
wiser to ask if some program is freedom-respecting
The Register MS Takes Money From Companies Banned by the Biden and Trump Administrations (National Security Risk)
today's sponsor
Sabotaging GNU/Linux PCs (and Users) is Not a 'Joke'
maybe cruelty is the very objective
Links 11/08/2025: Data Breaches, Politics, and Climate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 10, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 10, 2025
Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Tea Caffeine Hot and Super ZZ Zero
Links for the day
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and Other Serial Sloppers
Maybe Microsoft wants to dub this "Web5"
Gemini Links 10/08/2025: Residents Management Company, Automation, and Politics
Links for the day
Links 10/08/2025: AOL Ending Dial-up
Links for the day
Seductive Mirage or Allure of Complex, Proprietary Coffee Machines (or Similar White Elephants)
Software is a lot like those things
Links 10/08/2025: Webrings, “AI Sunglasses” and “AI Eyeglasses”, US Administration Intensifies Attacks on Science and Research
Links for the day
Sometimes Newer is Worse
We generally need to reject this dumb notion that "old" means bad
The Code Used to Make Techrights Fits on a Seventh of a Floppy Disk (or 100KB When Compressed)
For the sake of comparison I've just downloaded the latest version of WordPress. The ZIP file is 27.2MB in size, or ~27,200KB.
What They Tell Young Programmers
Coding in 2025
Simpler is Better When Simple is Enough
Over-complicating things to "sell" new versions is so 1990s
Links 10/08/2025: From Social Control Media to Prison, New Examples of Windows TCO
Links for the day
Sloppy Reporting About Slop, or How The Register MS Lowers Its Standards
Maybe the management isn't even aware of this
IBM's Strategy: Cull 'Expensive' Workers, Replace Them With Cheaper Ones
So far we saw not even one rebuttal or challenge to the claim of Red Hat layoffs scheduled for tomorrow
If You Attack Somebody Too Much You Legitimise and Strengthen That Somebody
at the end those attacks add up to a "martyr" status
The Man Who Helped Microsoft Kill Linux is Trying to Delay Our Lawsuits Against Him
By conservative estimates, and based on court documents submitted by them, they're prepared to spend over a million dollars on lawyers, fighting against me and my wife
Gemini Links 10/08/2025: Gen Con 2025 and Framework Laptop
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 09, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 09, 2025
The Register MS (Microsoft) or The Register AI (Slop)?
What a slopfest!
Is Red Hat About to Give the Boot to GNOME People Who Helped Microsoft 'Secure' (Monopolised) Boot?
It was always a dumb idea to play along with Microsoft's hardware mischief
Sales of Windows on PCs (Windows Licences) Go Down
Microsoft has a big problem in its hands
The Hype That Microsoft and The Register MS (Among Others) Promote Helps Stage DDoS Attacks on Free Software Sites
Microsoft is, to put it bluntly, pure evil
The Goal of Coopetition Assumes You're Friends
it will never work with Microsoft
Links 09/08/2025: Putin Allegedly to Visit Alaska (Which He Deems Part of Russia), Mike Tyson Sued for Copyright Infringement
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, LinuxSecurity, and Google News With Its Slopfarms of Choice
SEO spam, made with LLMs
Follow the Money: The Register MS Gets Paid to Promote "Hey Hi" Ponzi Scheme/Hype, Some Fake 'Articles' Might Be Composed by LLMs Already
paid to promote slop
Gemini Links 09/08/2025: Rethinking Aliases and Posting on Gopher vs. the Web
Links for the day
Links 09/08/2025: Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell Dies, Slop Future Bleak
Links for the day
After Shutting Down Studios, Divisions, Applications (e.g. Skype) Microsoft is Also Shutting Down 'Apps'
Cuts all around as layoffs persist this month, Microsoft tries to get many people to resign, and debt skyrockets
Most of Geminispace Can Probably Fit on a CD-ROM or a DVD (the Textual Part)
If one excludes very large capsules and ones that contain non-textual contenty
Eventually UEFI 'Secure Boot' Will be Dropped (Users Will Demand Its Removal and Boycott Its Pushers)
we expect OEMs will just listen to users
The Register MS: We Know Slop is a Bubble and Mindless Hype, But We Get Paid to Participate
Call out the culprits
Hate Mail From Anonymous Cowards
if this persists, we'll need to escalate
There Are Probably Over a Million Pages in Geminispace
there are two many limitations which merit a mention when it comes to assessing magnitude
Informal Open Letter to the Lawyer of the Microsofters (on Who's Funding the SLAPPs Against Techrights)
Whenever I ask about the funding they try to change the subject and act all aggressive
Microsoft Lunduke is Just Provoking People for Provocation's Sake
Be forewarned and remember where this guy came from: Microsoft
Besieged by Plagiarists Who Play With LLMs and Image Fusions
We really need to exercise or use our collective voice to oppose Serial Sloppers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 08, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 08, 2025
Gemini Links 09/08/2025: Water Painting and Political Violence
Links for the day