Bonum Certa Men Certa

“Things Are Going Downhill at Novell These Days”

Summary: Novell deceives the press just as the company is imploding, as well as getting much smaller

NOVELL is falling apart as a company and as a brand. Quite symbolically (of Novell's bleeding to death), one person has just uploaded a video titled: "Novell Provo Campus Building H Water Leak"

The description of the video goes like this: "Things are going downhill at Novell these days. There was a massive water leak and huge amounts of damage done to the Lobby of Building H. Novell Provo Campus Lobby Water Leak"

[an error occurred while processing this directive]





Direct link



Novell's much bigger internal issues are actually a lot less visible than the above. Novell is currently trying to 'dress up' the real news about the management exodus that we covered last night. The press is catching up very quickly, but the company's press release [1, 2, 3, 4] tries hard to spin, spin, spin. That's what PR is all about: defensible omission, distraction, selectivity, and reasonable distortion.

“They announce the departure of many executives (as a bundle) and then treat such big departures as minor, describing the whole move as "reorg", which is a vague concept.”Novell's PR Director, Ian Bruce, completely ignores the departures and pretends that the decoy of "reorg" is all there is to talk about. This is an old trick devised also by Microsoft. They announce the departure of many executives (as a bundle) and then treat such big departures as minor, describing the whole move as "reorg", which is a vague concept. It is ambiguous as this can be interpreted as either bad news or good news. They sort of "package together" (or group) a lot of bad news that must reach shareholders and mix it with something that's positive or only seemingly positive in order to just bury the bad news and be done it.

Many news sites have fallen into this PR trap, which was set up by Novell's marketing/management people, no doubt. Those who were docile and gullible only/mostly spoke about "reorg", just as Novell had hoped. Examples:

1. Novell announce a reorganisation

2. Novell reorganizes business and management

3. Novell Corporate Restructure

4. Novell reorg aims at solution sales

In this reorganization, three current units—identity and security management (ISM); systems and resource management (SRM); and open platform solutions (OPS) will meld into one security, management and operating platforms business unit headed by senior vice president Jim Ebzery.


Well done, Novell. You lied to journalists and here they are rewriting your press release (more or less). It's a disgrace to both Novell and to the practice of professional journalism.

There are exceptions however. The very prominent (as in widely-syndicated) Associated Press came out with a more appropriate headline, but it leaves out major news about major departures. Apart from the raw article there were copies in news sites such as ABC, BusinessWeek, the Washington Post and the New York Times. Only one publication (as far as one can tell) has modified the Associated Press headline to add: "[Novell] says 2 executives to leave"

That's the main news. It is about Novell shrinking and losing key suits (managers). It is very bad news, it's not just a "reorg". To quote from another news source:

On an interim basis, Jeff Jaffe, who has served for the last four years as CTO and executive vice president of the business units, has agreed to report to Hovsepian as a strategic advisor. He will be leaving the company this February. Senior Vice President of Strategic Development Roger Levy will also be leaving Novell.


J.P. Morgan's response? "Change Does Not Always Make it Different" sums it up.

Manek, a British consultant who writes at ZDNet UK, has just published this short article about Novell. The headline says: "Whither Novell?"

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Novell still doesn't know what it's for. Recent news that the company has once again re-organised itself, following a fairly abysmal set of financial results, smacks slightly of desperation.

[...]

What's depressing is that I seem to have been making the same or similar comments every few years about Novell, ever since the company went bonkers buying Unix, WordPerfect and a whole host of other bits and pieces as it looked to replace its failing NetWare business.


Boycott Novell is linked there among the comments, in relation to Mono. In other news this week, Miguel de Icaza is still looking appease Microsoft. Perhaps that's all Novell has left, namely fusion with Microsoft.

"Now [Novell is] little better than a branch of Microsoft"

--LinuxToday Managing Editor



Recent Techrights' Posts

Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
 
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025
Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
Links for the day
If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
Links for the day
Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025
Microsoft - Like IBM - Does the "Relocation" Tricks (Start Over Elsewhere, Then Get Sacked by Microsoft)
It is a "low blow" or a "dick move"
After the Free Software Foundation's Campaign to Raise Money Let's See Campaigns to Finish Off Microsoft (Vista 11, GitHub etc.)
Microsoft is in effect collapsing
Your Publications Have No Major Impact Unless or Until You "Get Some Heat"
we're on the right track
Slopwatch: A Cause for Hope, the Hype is Dying
For about a month we showed that becoming a slopfarm - for several weeks - resulted in utter failure and ruin for BetaNews
Links 11/07/2025: Censorship Worsening, 3D Printing Success Stories, UK and France Unite Around Nukes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Zorin OS and Scriptonite Updates
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Hardware, Russia, and China
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Intel Collapsing and Microsoft Resorts to Bribery to Push Slop Via Obligatory Education
Links for the day
The EFF Sided With the Team That Strangles Women and Tells Women to Kill Themselves
They say that apathy and inaction are a form of a "stance"
"Nat [Friedman] and [the Serial Strangler From Microsoft] Were Always Exceptionally Close," Says Former Housemate and Colleague
Now Alex (hiding behind another name when that suits him) not only attacks women but also people who merely report what he did to women
Exemplary List of Things That Are Not Artificial Intelligence or Even Intelligence
The "age of AI" or "era of AI" or "AI revolution" mostly boils down to rebranding, just like "the cloud"
New Letter From the European Patent Office Explains How the Office Plots to Grant Many Illegal Patents, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of 'Growth'
Open letter to Mr Rowan (VP1) and Mr Aledo Lopez (COO)
Abuse of Process
5RB is employing people who help violent men
What Microsoft's Nat Friedman and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
"Get in da car; No time to explain, loser"
Microsoft and IBM Don't Have Much of a Future (They Mostly Pretend at This Point)
IBM and Microsoft are in some ways alike but in many ways different
It's Not Just Twitter (or X.com) That's Dying, Microsoft's Equivalent is Dying Also
Unable to find a business model
GitHub Copilot Can Cause the Bankruptcy of GitHub to Come Sooner and GitHub to be Shut Down Just Like Skype
Some publicly available information suggests that even for each paid subscriber for plagiarism (LLM 'coding') GitHub Copilot still loses more money than it makes
Wayland is Bad for the Planet
If you use Wayland, it'll take you longer to accomplish tasks and you will consume more energy (or battery life)
Legitimising Those Who Sabotage You
Microsoft is a very malicious company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 10, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 10, 2025
On Microsoft Layoffs
we might be looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs since 2023
EPO Management Already Breaks Its Own Promise (Lie) on "Bringing Teams Together"
This gut-punching move happened just 2 days ago
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Occupation of 2025 and "Old Man Yells At Soundcloud"
Links for the day
Our Lawsuits Against the 'Cancel Mob' (Ringleaders) Helped Reduce Anti-Free Software Online Abuse
That's not to say that lawsuits are the best way to handle terrible people. But that can help.