Reports on Novell’s quarterly earnings show that for all of the buzz about Novell’s recent Linux activities, its well-being is overwhelmingly dependent on its declining legacy business. Quarterly revenue from software licensing fell from $60M to $46M in a year, and SuSE licenses only brought in $8 million (out of a total revenue of $297M). As would be expeced in a company trying to re-purpose itself for new opportunities, operating costs are on the rise, resulting in increased losses.
Novell killed WordPerfect. And now Novell is going to kill SuSE.
You don’t believe in resurrections, do you? RIP Novell…
Bye Bye Ximian?
and mono could save novell or not ?
umm interesting Novell have rid off all their money
into ximian labs ….
I will always remember the good old days, when Netware was king.
The almost rival sun for blown opertunities.
They still may make it, but just in case I say “May you rest in peace Novell”.
I hope Novell starts to pull a profit from the Linux and OSS investment. Their technology and products have been very good once most of the bugs are worked out. But, Novell, PLEASE release a version of Client32 that is bugless (or at least contains no major bugs!). How on Earth the programmers can’t get this done is beyond me. Novell’s NCP based OS and a Novell client shouldn’t cause as many problems as they do.
Another open souce Linux success story in the making. I wonder where all their software engineers will find jobs? MS?
nice try
ximian revenues: 0
suse revenues: $8 million
i think i know who’s gonna get fired
Novell is from OLD school. It doesn’t know how to work in a creative and fast changing environment like free software.
Novell bought Ximian, a Gnome specialized company, and then bought Suse, a kde-based linux distribution. And worse, Novell remain with Gnome and KDE. Ximian’s mono will remain a poor and incomplete clone of M$ .Net.
Bye bye Novell. Dinossaur companies will be stinguished.
So it just makes sense to consolidate efforts on Ximian Gnome and Mono where the future lies. Novell has stated that they don’t like the Qt license and that’s why the future is Gnome on Novell Linux.
You sound like Stock buyers. Only caring about today not realizing that “duh, of course they’re losing money; they’re shifting customer bases!” Novell may very well fail, but I suspect if they do it may have something to do with short sighted planning.
Seems like OSS can be used to make profit in some situations. Companies that make money with OSS seem to be
– Redhat (only use OSS licenses)
– MySQL (mixed licenses)
– JBoss
– IBM (not directly, but OSS is a catalyst for the sale of hardware and consulting.
Novell is in the transition phase really …
so a few qaurters of loses is not a big deal.
and besides i think they are keeping their prices lower…
so that they can grab some market share …
that will iattract development .. and it will be good from the marketing point of view … a larger share always attract biger corporation … and so with more than 1.5 billion in pocket .. what is there to worry about … the game has only begun…
and for those who think novell is going to kill suse … do you have any decent proof for such a stupid claim> Eweek recently rated suse 9.3 the best distribution they have tested. . and i dont think eweek is a some linux-fanatic website where everysecond distro is rated as the most perfect thing ever created.
just wait for another year or so …
novell is certainly going to make it big.
Thats what I was thinking.
I like Novell as a company but believe that Mono is a terrible thing for GNU/Linux systems. I would rather see Redhats increasing efforts to bring GCJ up to speed succeed.
the majority of novell client use kde… don’t think novell will stop kde for their distribution
Netcraft confirms it: BSD… I mean, Novell is dead.
Don’t forget Apple is dead as well.
I’ll believe it when the fat lady sings, but not before.
Novell had a great platform, great stuff which worked. The board fell for the Linux hype and VOILA!!! the company is bleeding.
Why couldn’t they just have checked the market first, then they’d realise that the business of linux is free as in free beer, the hype is worthless.
Right now, it seems like Novell’s largest problem is it’s trying to make such a huge leap all at once, it’s not doing some things well; simple things like a clear product lineup. OES is nice from what I’ve seen so far, but aside from that, I’m not entirely sure how their OSS usage really has anything to do with their core products(netware, bordermanager, zenworks…). How many different distros do they need of linux? Three versions of Suse and NLD don’t make up for the fact that they haven’t made a simple Netware Client which works like their Windows platform client32 software. That’s the #1 thing I want from them.
Speaking of NLD, just from playing around with it, I don’t see any useful reason to pay the liscencing for it. It’s basically Suse, with some extra authentication client built into it. Nothing special from what I can see. Although, I could be wrong about it. What should I use, evolution or groupwise? Which is better? What’s the point of having both? How about having bordermanager on a Linux OES server?
IMO, Novell needs to follow the path Steve Jobs took Apple on to leverage all this OSS. Simplify everything, and make sure everyone knows the path you’re taking, where you’re going/are/have been.
I work in a Novell environment using Netware and Windows machines with client32 and zen for workstations. Nothing Novell is producing with OSS has any benefit for us, and would do nothing by disrupt what we have now. We have one Suse Enterprise server running, and it’s doing simple NFS hosting for a second Tier service(not mission critical).
Once they ship a NLD with a real, fat client, NDPS support, and a less buggy version of the groupwise client, then maybe we’ll start thinking of replacing Windows, at least on the desktop. As for the server side, continue to improve OES and people will follow. Just do everyone a favor and make it completely clear what you’re doing with it. The information coming from Utah is muddled and filled with buzzwords at best. I don’t see any “synergy” yet.
Netware is dying so it’s pretty good to get an increase in revenue by 1% even though their linux business haven’t really taken off yet.
“Novell had a great platform, great stuff which worked. The board fell for the Linux hype and VOILA!!! the company is bleeding.”
I wouldn’t call this bleeding, it’s pocket money for Messman and friends. More important is to get sales up, both on the server and the desktop. Red Hat is doing better than Novell at the moment so they have to keep their prices low(as they are now) to get more customers.
“Why couldn’t they just have checked the market first, then they’d realise that the business of linux is free as in free beer, the hype is worthless.”
I know you’re a biased chill but cmo’n, you can’t say that corporate linux is free as in beer. Then you are a totally clueless idiot, even if you’re from Sweden.
Honestly, they have 23 Novell engineers working on Mono alone. A techonlogy that is going nowhere.
@Anonymous (IP: —.cm-upc.chello.se)
“Why couldn’t they just have checked the market first, then they’d realise that the business of linux is free as in free beer, the hype is worthless.”
Yeah better tell that to Red Hat with their 4+ years of consecutive double digit growth.
This is in reply to namsu.
I hope Novell makes it. I think they have a chance. However, I am concerned with their activities with SuSE. And, 9.3 proves my point.
If you have SuSE 9.3 Professional, try the following two tests:
1. Install a new system, formatting the root partition (or any partition for that matter) as JFS.
2. Install the PostgreSQL using Yast.
Please post your results.
I don’t know for sure, but in my memory, I can’t recall SuSE ever releasing a new version of their Linux distro with a feature that worked in a previous version taken out because of technical difficulties. SuSE would fix the problem and then release it. It doesn’t seem to be w/Novell. It seems Novell was more interested in release date than in release quality. And, that my friend, is why (and how) Novell may end up killing SuSE.
My impression is that Novell is taking SuSE down the same path that Detroit was going down in the 70s and 80s. Quality became secondary to moving units. What happened? It allowed other car makers, such as Honda and Toyota especially, to get a serious foot hold in the US market, and the Big 3 had some serious problems for quite a while, when people revolted and bought the (most of the time) cheaper and more reliable foreign cars.
Historically, SuSE has shown excellent engineering, worthy of its German roots. I hope the missteps with SuSE 9.3 are due to the transition and not a precursor of things to come.
http://www.novell.com/job_search/servlet/eJobSearch?Detail=005759
The future of the Novell desktop is Gnome/Mono
Last I heard Novell had over a BILLION in the bank. I’m hardly going to start dumping them over a lousy $14 million loss in one quarter – or even if they do that for four quarters in a row, given their total revenue is still in excess of a billion a year.
Come back in two years and tell me where they’re at.
Looks like this last attempt of Novell to resurect will fail. They simply don’t get it with OSS: you can’t make money from a mixed environemt, between OSS and closed source that is, and that is something Red Hat said. Well, they’ll go down like the Titanic. RIP Novell. They could save their asses, follow the Red Hat modell, offer services at a lower price than Red Hat, at least in the beggining. But having a bunch of products, (heck, just go to their web site, it gets confusing), doesn’t work. They won’t kill SuSE, but they’ll go down if they don’t start to get their act togetter.
my 2 cents…
”
Novell had a great platform, great stuff which worked. The board fell for the Linux hype and VOILA!!! the company is bleeding.
Why couldn’t they just have checked the market first, then they’d realise that the business of linux is free as in free beer, the hype is worthless.
”
Red Hat Inc (RHAT)
VALUATION MEASURES
Market Cap (intraday): 2.29B
Enterprise Value (27-May-05)³: 2.58B
Trailing P/E (ttm, intraday): 53.86
Forward P/E (fye 28-Feb-07)¹: 36.06
PEG Ratio (5 yr expected)±: 1.64
Price/Sales (ttm): 11.69
Price/Book (mrq): 6.36
Enterprise Value/Revenue (ttm)³: 13.11
Enterprise Value/EBITDA (ttm)³: 94.24
Profitability
Profit Margin (ttm): 23.12%
Operating Margin (ttm): 13.72%
Income Statement
Revenue (ttm): 196.47M
Revenue Per Share (ttm): 1.008
Revenue Growth (lfy)³: 37.20%
Gross Profit (ttm)²: 90.80M
EBITDA (ttm): 27.33M
Net Income Avl to Common (ttm): 45.43M
Diluted EPS (ttm): 0.24
Earnings Growth (lfy)³: N/A
Balance Sheet
Total Cash (mrq): 321.20M
Total Cash Per Share (mrq): 1.82
Total Debt (mrq)²: 600.38M
Total Debt/Equity (mrq): 1.663
Current Ratio (mrq): 2.768
Book Value Per Share (mrq): 2.043
Cash Flow Statement
From Operations (ttm)³: 125.32M
Free Cashflow (ttm)³: 106.82M
I guess that 200 million in revenue (90M profit) and the 300 million they have sitting in the bank came from all of that proprietary software that Red Hat sells, right?
Dumb ass
When you start rebuilding a team or a company results are going to be less than satisfactory at first. Netware is going no where, they saw this and are trying to expand to different areas that look promising. While they didnt make a profit this quarter I would expect to see profits in a year maybe two if they are unlucky, but the linux market is increasing so I cant see them constantly losing money.
I have never use netware, know not much about it and often thought it was kind of old technology.
Up until recently, I have absolutely no reason for looking into Novell product. However, after looking through some of the offering and pricing it become actually a little bit more interesting.
My organization runs mostly linux desktop and use nfs primarily for file, openldap for authetication etc. However, the we constantly have problem the way nfs behave and in particular inheritance file permission issue and default creation mode, although problem can pretty much be dealt with posix acl, umask, setgid etc… but it is really kind of diffuclt to maintain at times. Off course it is possible to use samba with combination of a few graphical client, of all that we have tried none give us the stability or intuitiveness as compare to someone on say windows or OSX. Reading through Novellś website, at least it seems with their OES offering, and a more fine grain acl, eDirectory and printing, deploying desktop linux would be much easier, at least less time consuming in maintaining file permissions and at least a little better when compare to managing authetication via openldap.
Off course, there are more on the horizon that would pretty much make all their offering obsolete, such as NFSv4, redhatś will-be-released netscape directory, but the thing is if a business want to solve todayś problem they are not likely to want to wait for another year until something is stabilize to deploy it. In short, I kind of think they do provide a few missing pieces if someone wants to go 100% on desktop.
As for NLD, I do agree it may be a little overprice, however, if someone wants stability and consistency, it does affer more than free download of say ubuntu or Mandriva. If you look at others in the same category, Lycoris, Xandros, Redhat Desktop, Mandrake corporate desktop aren´t cheap either. Remember, regular user are often merciless and care little about technology.
This comes as no surprise Novell couldn’t compete with Netware. They haven’t done anything with Suse since they bought them R.I.P.
”
i hope they sink and take ximian and suse with them.
”
Ummm, why may I ask? Just because you aren’t running Ximian Desktop or SUSE Linux doesn’t mean that you aren’t using Novell technologies. What about Evolution? Or Novell copyrighted code in the kernel or Gnome?
“I guess that 200 million in revenue (90M profit) and the 300 million they have sitting in the bank came from all of that proprietary software that Red Hat sells”
– 3.2 Billion In IPO
– 600 million in debenture given to them in 2004
– They got kicked out from Dell PC division in 2000
– They have created there own worst nightmare : Fedora
And thats all they got left ?
Dell whas created with 50 million and is worth billion.
Red Hat whas created with 3.2 billion and is decling everyday valued in the millions this days.
Red Hat , SuSe , Linspire , Xandros , Progeny are all company loosing money or on life support.
Mandriva , Ubuntu , Knoppix are the one making GNU/Linux and making a profit.
Novell bough the bigest overhyped money loosing GNU/Linux distribution : SuSe , not even IBM who as big coffers wanted to keep it , even after they owned it because it whas bankrupt and kept it on life support as they invested so much money on that looser.
Novell is in a bad position what they should do is cancel all there GNU/Linux development plan and just package what the community offer and work on including/integrating there already working services and products.
They got 260 million invested in SUSE and they got minus 35 million in return so far.
They need to get rid of the dual Name : If its a Novell product call it Novel Period , it send the clear message that thats how it will be at Novell from now on , Cancel the Microsoft support , why pay to support a competitive product at all , also they need to stop overlapping there product , One server product is enough , One desktop product ( I dont mean one desktop I mean not one for business and one for users , simply one desktop product for all , they should be exactly the same and the best they have to offer ,one is enough , you do the best and you remove some function for lighter/cheaper version , easier to bug fix and maintain this way. Thats what Microsoft does.
They should split there service and OS division permanently so that the marketing for there OS is more visible.
In order to make money you have to have your development and support and product making and all your debt paid included as part of the overall ROI and included in the profit.
If you have to pay 200 milion in order to make 8 , leave that to somebody else , you obviosuly dont need it.
if any of you fucktards knew what you were yapping about, then you might have picked up from the article a few things.
The first is that it was “reports” that were posted, whether they are true or not is another matter.
Secondly, shareholders always get scared when a bad report gets “leaked” and sell shares. Big deal, done it myself.
Thirdly, shareholders, sometimes need extra cash for a holiday/new car/new house/shares in another company, so they will sell off loads of shares they hold. Big deal, done it myself.
Forthly, the reported shortfall was in sales of legacy products. Legacy by defination means from the past, ie Netware.
We all knew Netware was almost dead and was not selling, so what, this is not news.
From what I can see from the Novell portfolio, they are in VERY good shape for the future, and I am seriously thinking of selling all my Microsoft shares and investing in Novell.
That is where the growth will be in the future.
What I can suggest to all you guys is this. Get out of your mums basement and get a life.
Novell is in an interesting position, it has a lot of potential, but without something major, they are likely to become nothing but a niche player.
What novell has going for it :
* Strong products, often considered better then microsofts.
* Some spare change lying around
* Loyal base of administrators
* Strong marketshare in certain niche areas (schools & government, at least in .qld.au)
SUSE was purchased to provided the base for the netware platform (thus reducing development costs) and to hopefully provide a client platform that enables novell to market something other then windows for a client platform.
Currentlty I would imagine most of the work has been getting the novell services running on SUSE, to create the OES product.
Now a lot of people have posted criticising the move to linux, citing the current loss. However it fails to recognise that it solves 2 major problems, 1st it provides an entry point for new administrators. Novell has a fierce loyality amongst it’s sys admins, this offers a chance to grow that group, and possibly gain more marketshare (or at the very least keep the share it has). 2nd it lowers the production cost of its operating syste,(assuming SUSE will be internally profitable).
As long as novell ensures that they stay ahead of the open source competition (i.e. Netscape Directory) they should begin earning money soon.
I think all in all it is too early to judge the decision to move towards linux, the litmus test will be if their current market share move towards OES. If they can get there loyal base to move to linux, without killing SUSE they will have a bright future.
“it has a lot of potential”
None at all.
“Strong products”
No , weak product that have been replaced by Microsoft , and are beeing replaced by Apple and GNU/Linux now too.
“Some spare change lying around ”
Used to be true , not anymore , lots of bad acquisition at exremely high cost in last years.
“Loyal base of administrators”
Administrator don control what is used.
“Strong marketshare in certain niche areas ”
No more visibility in certain area , the highest marketshare is not there and its in decline.
“SUSE was … client platform. ”
SuSe is wrongly tought to be #2 in GNU/Linux , and they tought it whas a profitable company that whas on its way to expand even more globally.
“1st it … the share it has). ”
No because the class are taught using Red Hat first , Mandriva in second and Debian in the rest …
“2nd it lowers the production cost of its operating system,(assuming SUSE will be internally profitable).”
Whats the point of having an OS no one else use and that dont enable to sale there tools or sale service on it. where yourin IT , if they where doing somethine else that would be a good point but they are an IT vendor …
Netscape Directory whas/will be made GPL by Red Hat everyone will be using it/including it …
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1820002,00.asp
“I think all in all it is too early to judge the decision to move towards linux”
The problem is not the move toward GNU/Linux , its there lack of a real complete winning strategy , there lack of 100% confidence in there own choice and the dual message they send. And that they Bought SuSe for 260 Million.
Why would anyone whant to buy Novell product when they are pricier and come with less feature then all the other GNU/Linux?
Novell remind me of Corel , they tought they could cut corner because they tought they add an avantage with there already existant software and loads of cash and already established services and distribution channel.
Potential dont mean anything when it cant even begin to meet or be the same as the people who have been leading and doing the job for 10 years.
maybe Novell have though that they could be profitable company
just buying few ugly ideas like .NET clone (mono ) and GNOME developers (Nat and De Icaza)
for me the big mistake was to let the ximian group to lead the next desktop environment.
Red Hat instead have strong Gnome programmers with a unique vision unified desktop strong framework winning technology
and so on.
to enforce my tought why you dont go to take a look at D-BUS
Bluecurve Anaconda HIG (Havoc Pennington ) ecc.
Eh, no. Market cap of 2.2 BILLION. Assuming all shares are floated that values them at, eh, 2.2 billion.
Yes, its ‘in the millions’. But once you hit the first thousand million, you change units…
My opinion on subject of mono-Novell: In political point of view, Novell wanted to bet to the “supposedly” winning horse, .Net.
Thus, they supported Mono in that aspect. Actually Icaza’s idea was (and is?) also probalby that, “betting the winning horse”, Microsoft. However, seems like Mono or “cross platform” .Net is nothing but a dead Horse with virtually no usage in enterprise and server market where actual money comes . One reason is the never convincible linux developers, another is other “horse” did not slow down at all. java is alive and kicking contrary to MS’s propaganda years ago.
Why would anyone whant to buy Novell product when they are pricier and come with less feature then all the other GNU/Linux?
Er, what? Less feature? Which “features” are being left out that an office environment would need? Some fancy desktop themes and other useless eye candy?
Potential dont mean anything when it cant even begin to meet or be the same as the people who have been leading and doing the job for 10 years.
10 years ago, Novell WAS leading the market they are still primarily targeting. They aren’t targeting the home user.
I think that’s something some linux users don’t get. Installing a linux distro and changing the KDE or gnome splash screen or being able to compile the latest Xorg means just about nothing to an office environment. The needs of the office environment are to get things done with the least amount of hassle, and cheap if possible. Bleeding edge apps and services aren’t critical to the environments Novell or Red Hat are gunning for.
Pissing and moaning about Novell for good technical reasons related to an enterprise environment is all well and good. Complaining about their products not being suitable for home use is missing the point. Who really cares whether or not Suse is what it once was? Unless you work on a distro, how can you really care that much about one?
Novell are a rudderless ship caught in some strong tides at the moment with many different projects on the go, very, very few of which are producing any kind of money. What’s worse is that a lot of these undertakings will likely never produce a return. They can’t lavish the resources they are doing on some open source projects until they significantly break into the black. There is going to have to be some serious belt-tightening there. If they’re not careful, they simply won’t have the resources to maintain their Linux desktop migration and they could quite easily be forced into returning to Windows in the future.
They also have a very confused strategy when it comes to using open source software, as they have a lot of archane, old and proprietary software that they need to protect. That will always make them vulnerable to companies like Red Hat who have a pretty clear strategy and message on such things. When Red Hat’s directory services software comes of age then it should cause Novell some real problems.
Their sales of SLES are very weak and people are obviously moving away from Netware faster than they thought. They had better hope that they can tempt people with OES quickly. Given that most IT environments revolve around Windows desktops, and everything there is geared towards Windows authentication and through that Active Directory, it isn’t a surprise that Novell and their software is being gradually edged out. If they’re clever then they’ll realise they have to work out exactly what it’s going to take to create a desktop that will get people away from Windows, and ultimately, decrease the Windows dominance that simply edges out Novell’s software like NDS, Zenworks etc. Unfortunately, they just simply haven’t got the first clue. You can only get that vision and direction from the top.
Quite frankly, Jack Messman doesn’t have a clue what direction Novell are heading in and is totally incapable of leading the company. He’s not a technology or a software guy, as so many of these Chairmen and CEOs are, and they are simply incapable of making sensible choices and bringing their software companies together.
If Novell’s Linux strategy fails, and I think it will, maybe they will buyout SCO and continue the war against Linux. Remember, SCO/Caldera is ex-Novell employees.
SUSE is a decent Linux distribution, but I doubt it can survive the Novell culture. Novell is not an open source company, as they have publically acknowledged. The community is very sceptical when it seems companies leeching off the work of the free & open source developers. Novell has given little back to the community. Sure it has open sourced some technologies (Hula) but this is just so they can attrack developers to these projects and reduce internal development costs. Same reason for buying SUSE, it needs to replace the aging Netware kernel.
The fact they $8mil in SUSE revenue is all they can produce is a very worrying concern for Novell investors. No wonder so many key SUSE execs have fled. Looks like Novell is continuing the monumental blunders that cause it to lose the 80% market share in Network OS to Microsoft.
RIP
David, you seems to be a pretty smart guy so may I ask why you post nonsens in every Novell thread coming up around here?
How can anyone take you seriously posting such biased crap?
You sir are nothing but a troll.
Novell is clearly an opensource company. They got many oss zealots in the staff, not only developers also lawyers and others. They already released the source for yast and connector and they got tons of developers working on various oss projects so your post is just bull to me.
xerxes2: Novell have stated they are a mixed source company. This means they will release product that are PROPRIETARY such as Groupwise etc. The only reason they have some open source products is the SUSE aquisition. They need a kernel in order to SELL their PROPRIETARY software. Development of the Netware kernel has ceased. New customers are not wanting to run the Netware kernel.
The SUSE aquisition was for 2 reasons:
– Leverage off Linux development to reduce the cost of developing Netware
– Sell their PROPRIETARY software to existing Linux sites
It is quite ironic that the CEO of Novell is called Mess-man. He has a real mess on his hand, and those within Novell/SUSE who were the vocal supporters of the SUSE takeover have either been forced out of the company or left of their own will after seeing the writing on the wall.
How can anyone take you seriously posting such biased crap?
Yes. Well you obviously do.
Biased? Have a look at the evidence. I really don’t need to say any more than I have. Novell quite obviously need to get a hold of themselves, but hey, they’re not the only IT company (or indeed any company) that needs to buck up their ideas in this manner. Whether I want Novell to succeed or not (and I do) then they’re simply, and blatantly obviously, going to have to get a grip on the situation.
They need a kernel in order to SELL their PROPRIETARY software. Development of the Netware kernel has ceased. New customers are not wanting to run the Netware kernel.
The Netware stuff is actually still there. A lot of Netware developers internally at Novell have become very defensive about their software to the point where the new Open Enterprise Server is simply not a Linux distribution.
OK, they’ve had to keep backwards compatibility but they’ve done it in the worst way possible. They didn’t seem to get the message that Netware and a lot of their proprietary software on top is now unmaintainable in the long-term and that moving to a Linux strategy would encompass everything. Look at Red Hat open sourcing their new directory services software. They’ve bought it, open sourced it and I’ll wager they’ll still make a return on investment with it.
You can’t be a both-source company, as Red Hat themselves have pointed out. Novell’s Linux business as it stands just isn’t going to make the kinds of returns that they’re used to or even to sustain them.
Look, you have something against Mono in particular. Well, Mono was started many years ago by some people who saw the danger with .Net only running on Windows. So if you don’t like .Net don’t use it. There are many other managed platforms to use instead so what’s the problem?
Your post here above is nothing but your own opinions which are clearly biased against Novell.
“If they’re not careful, they simply won’t have the resources to maintain their Linux desktop migration and they could quite easily be forced into returning to Windows in the future.”
What the heck do you mean by this? They are the second largest Linux company around and you think that they don’t have the resources to finish their internal migration to Linux. It’s their own software for christ sake. If you’re right about this then they are in trouble. Isn’t the migration already done?
“You can’t be a both-source company, as Red Hat themselves have pointed out. Novell’s Linux business as it stands just isn’t going to make the kinds of returns that they’re used to or even to sustain them.”
One more comment with some opinions right out of the ass. Novell is selling tons of linux subscriptions and is making money so what’s your point? This little loss this quarter is nothing to scream about.
xerxes2: Novell is making money? A $16 million loss is not what I call making money.
As for ‘selling tons of linux subscriptions’ Red Hat is outselling them 4 to 1.
Novell received $8 million in revenue from SUSE. I suspect it cost them a lot more than $8m to get that revenue.
Novell is selling tons of linux subscriptions and is making money so what’s your point?
Are they really?
This little loss this quarter is nothing to scream about.
That’s what Sun said, but you also have to put two and two together with their current strategy and ask yourself if it’s going to work. There’s more than enough evidence to suggest that Novell are just as worse off with Linux than without it.
Look, you have something against Mono in particular.
Well, for Novell it leaks money like a seive and is pointless when they use other cross-platform tools like Java and Qt for just about everything else. When you’re financial situation has not improved you cut out the cruft. Clear? You’d like that to be anti-Novell but it simply isn’t.
That’s my point within the context of this new article.
Well, Mono was started many years ago by some people who saw the danger with .Net only running on Windows.
And it will continue to only run on Windows. It’s a Microsoft controlled and directed technology, and as such, you’ll always be chasing around trying to replicate what happens on Windows. Windows.Forms is a case in point.
So if you don’t like .Net don’t use it. There are many other managed platforms to use instead so what’s the problem?
That’s not part of this subject. The point is that Novell are making a loss, nothing has significantly improved and they’re going to have to tighten up if they want to get through this difficult period. Mono is obviously one of those things that isn’t making money, they’re not using it widely and it’s a luxury they cannot afford.
Your post here above is nothing but your own opinions which are clearly biased against Novell.
So what are your comments then? I’m sorry if you’re frustrated, but there’s nothing I can do.
They are the second largest Linux company around and you think that they don’t have the resources to finish their internal migration to Linux.
It’s not a question of finishing it – it’s maintaining it. The largest Linux company is making money, the second largest isn’t, and that’s the crucial difference. They’re going to have to make cutbacks if their revenue doesn’t increase significantly, and if they don’t have the resources to maintain their own desktop direction then it will probably have to go the journey or at the very least large parts of their so-called desktop strategy.
It’s their own software for christ sake. If you’re right about this then they are in trouble.
Yes, and that software has to be maintained and paid for – by them.
Isn’t the migration already done?
No actually, it’s gone very quiet all of a sudden. They seem to have moved the vast majority of people to Open Office on Windows, but the Linux move looks as if it’s far more challenging. Besides, if they can’t convince anyone outside of the company to use their Linux desktop, and grow their software, then they’re going to be on their own and they’re not going to make their desktop efforts pay for themselves. That’s the problem, but they just don’t seem to realise that.
“No actually, it’s gone very quiet all of a sudden. They seem to have moved the vast majority of people to Open Office on Windows, but the Linux move looks as if it’s far more challenging. Besides, if they can’t convince anyone outside of the company to use their Linux desktop, and grow their software, then they’re going to be on their own and they’re not going to make their desktop efforts pay for themselves. That’s the problem, but they just don’t seem to realise that.”
Last time I heard about it they had already passed 50% and was aiming for getting the other 50% on linux by the end of the year, so again what’s your point.
I just don’t get why you continue your fuding against them. You said before that you want them to succeed so I just don’t get it.
I’m an oss zealot myself but I have no specific personal interest in Novell so if you got valid points I don’t mind but your braindead speculations are just annoying.
Last time I heard about it they had already passed 50% and was aiming for getting the other 50% on linux by the end of the year, so again what’s your point.
That was 50% on Open Office.
I just don’t get why you continue your fuding against them. You said before that you want them to succeed so I just don’t get it.
FUD stands for Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, so you obviously don’t know what that means.
If you want someone to succeed you’ve just got to point out the speed bumps in the way. As I’ve pointed out before, if you want to accuse other people of mindless speculation then address the points at hand – there’s certainly enough of them there.
I’m an oss zealot myself but I have no specific personal interest in Novell so if you got valid points I don’t mind but your braindead speculations are just annoying.
Read again for some valid points and reasoning. Again, if you want to make such statements then address the points at hand one by one. If you find it all too annoying then that’s just tough luck I’m afraid, which is strange considering you have no personal interest in Novell.
“That was 50% on Open Office.”
No it was on Linux. http://www.datamonitor.com/~9aa10ecaed4948d68816dfc1c0c522b2~/indus…
“FUD stands for Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, so you obviously don’t know what that means.”
I know what that means and your posts are nothing but 100% anti Novell FUD!
“Read again for some valid points and reasoning. Again, if you want to make such statements then address the points at hand one by one. If you find it all too annoying then that’s just tough luck I’m afraid, which is strange considering you have no personal interest in Novell.”
There are NO valid points in your posts David, it’s 100% FUD. I just don’t get why you continue it day after day.
No it was on Linux.
There’s a difference between running Linux and dual-booting to meet targets
. If they weren’t having problems then there wouldn’t be any need to invest in GTK on Windows or to port Evolution to Windows 
. It just seems as though many people are running around after the people who cannot get their own pet stuff running with Linux.
I wish them the very best of luck with the whole exercise, as it’s a very, very brave public move, but this is the sort of activity you undertake from a strong financial position when your core business is in place and generating real revenue. Once you have that underneath you you can do whatever you want. That’s the unemotional point.
I know what that means and your posts are nothing but 100% anti Novell FUD!
Oh wow. 100%, with an exclamation mark! When you’re able to back up your FUD, then it’s not FUD, is it?
There are NO valid points in your posts David, it’s 100% FUD. I just don’t get why you continue it day after day.
These one sentence answers aren’t getting you anywhere, nor is there any point other than to put up a pretty pointless defence. Capital letters aren’t going to help either.
If you think that there are no valid points then address them, say why and get back to us. Not before
.
“There’s a difference between running Linux and dual-booting to meet targets
. If they weren’t having problems then there wouldn’t be any need to invest in GTK on Windows or to port Evolution to Windows 
. It just seems as though many people are running around after the people who cannot get their own pet stuff running with Linux.”
They will get into problems with customized software written for Windows and also with some proprietary software from other vendors other than that it should be a breeze.
“If you think that there are no valid points then address them, say why and get back to us. Not before
.”
You are saying that Novell is doing bad and I say the opposite so we just sit back and wait for the next report to drop in and see how they’re doing. It’s also a matter of marketing and that’s very difficult to tell how they are going forward with that. Maybe they wants to get on 100% Linux themselves before they are beginning to sell it more actively to others.