Novell News Summary - Part II: Finance, Virtualisation, GWAVACon Videos and Staff Moves

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-03-14 21:12:15 UTC
Modified: 2009-03-14 21:13:31 UTC

IT WAS A MIXED week for the mixed-source company, Novell. Last night they got publicly humiliated in Slashdot and there was too little in the news to suggest that Novell is gathering any steam. That's just being brutally honest.

Finance

Novell's performance was mentioned briefly in a New York Times blog.

Companies like Google and Novell, Verizon and AT&T dragged down the broader markets as traders worried about a prolonged global downturn, The New York Times’s Jack Healy reported.

Here is the New York Times article which is cited.

Companies like Google and Novell, Verizon and AT&T dragged down the broader markets as traders worried about a prolonged global downturn.

Novell's latest Form 10-Q filing has been put up in MarketWatch under the heading "FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS". The South African press has something to say about Novell (Linux) investor sentiment:

Ask Novell who has been trying to make up for lost revenues in its traditional proprietary business with Linux sales with only a modicum of success.

Forbes Magazine mentioned Novell along the way and so did Small Cap Investor

Arcsight, founded in 2000 and backed by venture capital, went public in February 2008 at $9 a share. The stock is up 27.0% since then. The company competes with much bigger software companies such as CA (nyse: CA - news - people ), Cisco (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ), Symantec (nasdaq: SYMC - news - people ) and Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - people ).

Novell Inc. (NasdaqGS:NOVL - News) is an infrastructure software company that offers software to integrate mixed technologies so they operate as one.

Nothing of particular significance here.

Netware

There was nothing noteworthy except this new video.

Virtualisation

IDG had this report from VMworld Europe 2009 where Novell got mentioned very briefly:

[A]s we discussed last week, we aim to prove that our collaboration with Citrix, Novell and Red Hat, as well as new features in WS08 R2 and SCVMM r2, will improve Microsoft's position in Burton's report."

Sadly, this article cites the corrupt Burton Group as a source. It's neither plural nor reputable.

Another IDG article was more focused on Novell.

Novell last week created the first link between its tool for virtualization of desktop applications and its software for managing configurations.

ZENworks Application Virtualization (ZAV) 7 provides an isolated environment on the desktop that includes all the needed application files, settings, runtimes, and components for rolling out a desktop application. Applications can then run locally in the virtualized environment without changing any settings in the operating system, registry or run-time environment.

This was also published in NetworkWorld and TechWorld.

Xenocode, a company which is occupied by former Microsoft employees, had this press release which mentioned Novell exrensively.

Xenocode engine powers new Novell ZENworks Application Virtualization 7. Xenocode, a leader in application virtualization and delivery technology, today announced the delivery of the latest version of its application virtualization technology to Novell.

Seattle (PRWEB) March 11, 2009 -- Xenocode, a leader in application virtualization and delivery technology, today announced the delivery of the latest version of its application virtualization technology to Novell. The recently announced Novell ZENworks Application Virtualization 7 leverages the latest Xenocode virtualization technology to help customers and managed service providers reduce the cost of testing, packaging and configuring virtual applications, and directly integrates with Novell ZENworks Configuration Management.

Mail

RazorSafe turns out to be playing nice with Novell GroupWise.

RazorSafe 200, 400, and 6000 product line now offer enhanced integration with email clients including Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise on top of existing web access, and support for all major email servers, including Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Domino, and Mirapoint Message Server.

IT Jungle notes that Novell's BrainShare was canceled, which indeed it was [1, 2, 3]. But GWAVACon 09 took place nonetheless and it got promoted as the fallback for potential attendees of BrainShare.

GWAVA's people have begun uploading videos from GWAVACon and here is the first.

Subsequent parts:

Here are some other new talks that GWAVA has just put on YouTube.

Monday Riva CRM ERP 3rd Party to GroupWise:

Tuesday intro to Vertigo:

Tuesday Intro to Reload:

Tuesday intro to Red Line:

Tuesday Intro to GWAVA:

Identity and Management

Early in the week, Novell put forth this press release about its management tools:

Novell today announced a comprehensive suite of business service management (BSM) solution offerings that address strategic customer needs to reduce cost, manage complexity and mitigate risks within today's complex IT enterprise. These solutions, which will be marketed as Novell€® Business Service Management, extend Novell's portfolio by delivering strategic capabilities to more effectively manage and measure the performance of physical and virtual IT infrastructure as a set of services delivered to business users. Novell BSM is the industry's first suite of Web 2.0-based solutions that allow organizations to reduce IT outages by 50 percent while lowering the operational risk inherent in every data center.

This was also covered here.

Novell Inc, Nasdaq:NOVL) announced on 11 March the release of a suite of Business Service Management (BSM) solutions to address customer needs to reduce cost, manage complexity and mitigate risks within complex IT enterprises.

Novell's identity management efforts got a mention in this IDG article.

Last week's newsletter ("The other federation technology") about Novell's mid 90's concept of a universal directory system brought out a number of comments that I'd like to share.

First I heard from Novell distinguished engineer and Bandit Project leader, Dale Olds. (You can catch Dale on my “InfoCards in the Enterprise” panel at the European Identity Conference - next month):

“What was internally called ‘Federated Partitions’ was one of my last efforts in NDS/eDirectory before I left Novell in 2000 [he later returned, of course]. It's also a really funny story. I demo’ed it to (then CEO) Eric Schmidt on a machine my son had build from spare parts. It was running Red Hat (either 5.1 or 5.2). Lots of irony there (especially that both my son and Eric later worked for Google), but the demo worked. I had no idea anyone had seen that demo externally, but you described it exactly in your newsletter. Man, that was a good idea. But it takes more than a good idea to make a successful product that customers can actually use.”

People

Some former Novell employees were seen moving between companies. Here is Alan Mulally:

Others tread more softly and succeed, like Eric Schmidt, the former Novell (NOVL) guy who runs Google (GOOG). Mulally arguably falls into the latter category. Since arriving he has left most of the team he inherited in place and quieted talk that an aerospace guy couldn't run an automaker.

Another one:

She has held roles at Novell and Vodafone, and was most recently engaged in Business Development for IBM services.

On a man called Hartzell:

As former brand interaction manger for Andersen Windows, Hartzell won the Web Marketing Award for Best Home-Building Web site. As the director of e-marketing for the world's leading e-commerce provider, Digital River, he managed clients such as Nabisco, Symantec, Novell, McAfee, Motorola, H&R Block, 3M, Siemens and Polaris.

Gavin Struthers gets promoted at McAfee, having served Novell in the past.

Software vendor, McAfee, has promoted Gavin Struthers from regional director to Asia-Pacific channels and operations director.

[...]

Struthers has been with the vendor for six years, and worked in various sales and general management roles for over 20 years across Australia, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and South Africa. Prior to moving to Australia in 2000, he spent three years establishing a regional presence for Novell in several countries throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

Those old rumours about a McAfee-Novell deal/merger may come to mind again.

Marketing

Not much was found here except videos, but here is a very silly new video.

Several times before we've commented on Novell's viral marketing in YouTube [1, 2, 3]. Novell is still doing this. Here is another new upload of "Making IT Work as One" (Novell's current tagline/motto/slogan).

Novell employees also uploaded:

NovellServices uploaded this instructional bit.

It sure seems like Novell loves YouTube for its service as a free-of-charge advertising space. Microsoft does the same type of thing and so do others. ⬆