Does a reinvented Novell matter anymore? As the company prepares to trumpet its focus on serving the open enterprise at its annual BrainShare conference this week, industry observers remain mixed on whether the former networking powerhouse has a relevant place in today’s corporate software market.
Well, I have been a MCNE and even a CNI for a while, so you can tell I have been deeply involved with Novell. I had the highest regard for their products, including NetWare, GroupWise, ManageWise and later eDirectory etc. All of these were best-of-breed in their categories, but that wasn’t enough topropel Novell into a higher success.
So, once Novell started talking about going Linux, I felt they lost their aura of best-of-breed, and became just one of the many Linux companies. Is NetWare with Linux kernel any good? Maybe, but I can’t be bothered enough to check, as I know Linux already. NetWare with Linux kernel just isn’t very exciting – to me. Probably Novell hoped to capture new mindshare, but I think that backfired.
Well, I have been a MCNE and even a CNI for a while, so you can tell I have been deeply involved with Novell. I had the highest regard for their products, including NetWare, GroupWise, ManageWise and later eDirectory etc. All of these were best-of-breed in their categories, but that wasn’t enough topropel Novell into a higher success.
I agree that Novell has some best-of-breed management/directory solutions, and their identity management technology is gaining quite a bit of momentum and recognition in the security space.
But in what God-forsaken twisted reality of a shell-shocked Twilight Zone-like nightmarish plane of existence would GroupWise be considered best-of-breed for anything? I shudder to even think about it.
It’s simply awful, it’s only redeeming feature is that it’s marginally nicer than Lotus Notes as a groupware messaging/scheduling client.
Course, that’s just MHO. But really, I hated it when I had to use it. Just not quite as much as Notes, which I absolutely despise.
Out of interest: which version was that?
So, once Novell started talking about going Linux, I felt they lost their aura of best-of-breed, and became just one of the many Linux companies. Is NetWare with Linux kernel any good? Maybe, but I can’t be bothered enough to check, as I know Linux already. NetWare with Linux kernel just isn’t very exciting – to me. Probably Novell hoped to capture new mindshare, but I think that backfired.
Not quite backfired, I think they just failed to realised that people weren’t going to move as quickly from NetWare to their Linux offerings, and that is what has hurt them – same situation has happened in SUN, they were late to Solaris x86, as a result, many who are considering leaving Solaris SPARC in favour of a RedHat/Dell offering are asking themselves whether there is a long term proposition in continuing to stay with the same company.
What Novell needs are not more distributors or integrators – they’ve got more of those than you can shake a stick at; what they need is more ISV’s – both at the server level and workstation.
They also need a better effort at rebranding themselves – lord knows who ever is in charge of their marketing department should be be chained up with the SUN marketing department wonks, and dropped into the deepest ocean because heaven knows that so far, they haven’t earned their keep.
This is the most telling part of the whole article:
“Novell has made it very clear that Linux is the future of the company, but once again Novell is poor at communicating it to everyone but the Novell faithful”
IT managers and paper MSCEs alike don’t have a clue what Novell is or does anymore. Anyone who does, is still a hold over from yester-year. I still run a Novell shop using Netware, eDirectory, GroupWise, ZenWorks, and BorderManager. They’re all good products which I would recommend to anyone(aside from netware due to its life expectancy).
But I basically “grew up” in a Novell environment. I know about Novell and it’s services because ever since I was a junior in high school I’ve been working and operating in a Novell environment. People who haven’t generally see Novell as a bit player to Microsoft. In terms of sales, everyone is a bit player to Microsoft. But in terms of technology, Novell’s offerings are right up there with Microsoft’s, and in some instances far surpass them(ZenWorks, eDirectory). Their marketing only targets people who use their products. They don’t target those who don’t. I’ve never gotten a piece of unsolicited literature from Novell. Not that junk mail is good, but how else do you reach out to non Novell users? Novell has not kept themselves in the lime light.
Also, admins are running out of reasons to stop Windows Server/Exchange from supplanting Novell products. Managers and other executives are deciding to go with Microsoft due to the marketing and market share. Not the technology.
Novell’s technology is nothing to sneer at. However, their marketing and brand awareness is. I’m not sure how to fix that, but they need to. They’ve got to come up with reasons not only keep windows from invading Novell shops, they need to find reasons so strong enough that people will swing the other way.
Also, admins are running out of reasons to stop Windows Server/Exchange from supplanting Novell products. Managers and other executives are deciding to go with Microsoft due to the marketing and market share. Not the technology.
Incorrect; if you were to look at just Windows and exchange by itself, in a vacuum, then sure, there is no reason to move from the status quo.
The situation is this, business doesn’t occur in a vacuum; and when they look at the Microsoft offerings, they look at the WHOLE line of products and how each of them integrate with each other; how the directory service hooks into the identity manager, and how that hooks into the application server, which hooks into the database server, and the exchange server that hooks back into the database server, then the links between the client applications and the server.
Novell could do something like that using Evolution, OpenOffice.org and Mono; macro’s in OpenOffice.org being written in C#, VB.NET or JS.NET; Evolution hooked into their Groupwise server etc. The problem is, they have no focus, and that is what kills them; they see each product as a single entity in its own right, when in reality, customers don’t view it as that.
A customer comes to a business like Novell, not wanting products, but solutions to problems – the problem with Novell, they’re a business run by engineers who have no clue about business processes and how a business run, thus, are unable to relate to, and thus sell their in the correct manner and addresses the issues to which the customer wants addressed.
Edited 2006-03-21 03:54
Basically, Microsoft Office is the big difference then. While you’re correct with that, you’re off base with the rest. Each Novell product is not a single entity. While they can act by themselves, they all extend the directory. ZenWorks, Netware, BorderManager, GroupWise and IdentityManager all integrate into eDirectory.
One of the markets Novell had a strong presence in was Government, particularly the military. And despite having superior products, Novell installations were replaced with Windows NT and 2000. It didn’t take very long for support people to see the handwriting on the wall and moved to Microsoft right along with the Government (I was one of them).
One of the things Novell has a problem with is their lack of sales presence. If I want to talk to a sales person for RedHat no problem, there is one assigned to us. Where is Novell at with SuSE? I don’t think any of us here have ever talked to a Novell rep. About a year ago I started receiving Connection, Novell’s magazine touting their products. If anything Novell needs to get their sales people out and pound on a few doors and get people familiar with their product line so that the only voice heard is not RedHat’s.
You said One of the things Novell has a problem with is their lack of sales presence. If I want to talk to a sales person for RedHat no problem, there is one assigned to us. Where is Novell at with SuSE?
I have to admit it’s not as easy to contact somebody from Novell and I agree with you that what sales presence they have really stinks. But I did submit an inquiry from their website and got a call pretty much straight away.
Unfortunately, the sales person did not seem to have a technical bone is his body and couldn’t answer even basic questions about a mail server (like does it support multiple domains.) We had to conference call in an engineer who, to his credit, knew a lot and was very well spoken. (They should probably switch jobs!)
At the end of the day they did not have a solution for me. That in itself was not what put me off though. I just can’t get passed that arrogant sales guy who couldn’t seem to give a s*it about my business because he felt I wasn’t going to drop a wad of cash on him.
Isn’t that sad?! I have dealt with my share of sales droids, and most of them have been pretty good, and some of them are outright terrible. I hope the experience you had with Novell is the exception rather than the rule.
would go to their exec board and say “after long and hard evaluation, I propose that we implement Netware as our primary method of sharing data.”
Upto 1990 you’d get fired if you said otherwise. From 1995 onwards, the other way round.
Novell’s been declared dead so many times it absolutely deserves the Lazarus award.
What they’re doing isn’t easy. As Jaffe said this morning during the keynote, it’s incredibly difficult to combine the fairly anarchistic open source method of working (“Planning? Documentation? What’s that?”) with the traditional mode of working that Novell employees normally use *AND* keep the best of both worlds.
XGL and Compiz are cases in point: there, they’ve simply developed things in-house until it was more or less ready, then put it in the open. This cuts down development time considerably.
As for the mindset thingie, yes: they need to market better. For some reason, however, that doesn’t seem to register upstairs.
Brainshare blog here: http://www.bertplat.nl/brainshare2006
Novell’s revenue will continue to decline, but they still have a handful of loyal customers in many sectors that will see them through. It’s a precarious position though.
in the LDS. And the LDS a lot of mindshare at Novell.