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Novell's Race Against Time
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Mar 31, 2005 11:49 PM
from the in-the-backstretch dept.
from the in-the-backstretch dept.
DiamondGeezer writes "The Guardian newspaper in the UK reports in 'It's a race against time' that Novell is on a knife-edge financially and competitively, having placed a huge one-way bet in the success of its Linux strategy. But there's no guarantee of success: its revenue from Linux licensing is puny, and it faces a crowded market of Linux distros. Novell may be getting some positive press now that it's gone full tilt for Linux, but let's remember the reasons why: because of mis-steps of its previous management (especially the disastrous acquisition of WordPerfect in the mid 1990s) and its failure to grow its Netware business (with more than a little help from Microsoft), it's now having to re-engineer itself for Linux."
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Questions on viability of NLD (Score:5, Interesting)
If so, what can the average Linux user do to help (besides switching to Novell Linux Desktop (NLD) or becoming a shill?)
If not, why not?
Re:Questions on viability of NLD (Score:5, Funny)
Also, is the best part of waking up really Folgers in your cup? Provide either a comprehensive proof of the above, or a definitive counter-example.
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Re:Questions on viability of NLD (Score:5, Informative)
After doing some research, I discovered that there is some good news for Novell:
Europe's Largest Railway Selects Novell's SUSE LINUX for Large Scale Server Migration [yahoo.com]
However, there is also some bad news:
Novell's Credibility 'Beginning To Wane' [forbes.com]
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Re:Questions on viability of NLD (Score:5, Informative)
I think this statement would be more accurate if you dated it 2000.
Novell have bled on the top line (actual cash vs expense) since 2k (and probably before, but I only have figures back to 2k). 2k4 was a small turnaound with 65m in operating profit.
Having said that, they still have a small war chest [yahoo.com], with 1.5b cash+equivalents, and short term liabilities of 700K. So they are solvent and good to go for a little while longer. Long term debt is not too high, but I can't find any info on its due dates.
Their real danger now is being lost in the crowd.
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Re:Questions on viability of NLD (Score:3, Insightful)
This may be like the opposite of "guilt by association", but here goes:
We fans of Linux like IBM these days because they support it extensively and have given it corporate legitimacy. IBM favors 2 distros in particular: Red Hat and SuSE. They both get pretty even support with IBM's servers and software (WebSphere, DB2, Tivoli, Lotus, etc).
In addition, w
Sad but true. (Score:3, Insightful)
They were one of the pioneers of many technologies available today. It will be sad to watch their slow painful death.
--
NoVA Underground: Where Northern Virginia comes out to play [novaunderground.com]
Re:Sad but true. (Score:3, Informative)
Outside North America, RedHat isn't nearly so dominant even in the server sector.
Re:Sad but true. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think this is true at all and I am wondering how you arrived at this.
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Re:Sad but true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Think - Novell, one of the largest networking software companies, having the final nail in the coffin being hammered in by choosing Linux.
How would that statement sound in the mind of a PHB? "Linux = doomed software companies" is a particularly nasty association when making a platform decision (even though going with Linux was probably the right solution, rather than continuing with NetWare.)
I don't know if they can pull out of the slump, but we should support Novell any way we can, as it stands as one of the largest allies Linux (and the OSS community) has today. To see Novell's downfall will definitely weaken Linux's corporate desktop offering.
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Re:Sad but true. (Score:5, Informative)
A few years ago I worked on a worldwide directory services project, and the suits brought the notorious Microsoft shill Gartner onboard. Only one of the partner companies involved (out of almost 40) was a Novell shop. What platform did they suggest? eDirectory. After using AD, eDirectory and OpenLDAP in varying implementations I can vouch for the power and effectiveness of the Novell tools.
ZENworks is a best of breed desktop management suite. Throw than on top of Novell's file and print tools. Add in the clustering support. The web based management tools. The handful of open source tools(Apache, PHP, MySQL, rsync) that now come with Netware. Taken together it's a very powerful, very valuable package. I can support more PC's using less staff with Netware than any other OS.
Now what sucks about Netware? Lack of developers. Every time I sit in a meeting, some asshole wants me to add yet another W2K3/SQL box for their product. Given Netware's market share I can't blame them. No-one is ever going to write another NLM.
OES on SuSE changes everything. You get all of the Novell tools, all of the open source tools, a worldwide developer base, plus the goodies from Ximian. It's a huge win. Not only do I get Linux, from the servers to the desktop, but I get the tools to manage every box.
It's not too late. The better tools can still win, but only if people knee deep in Microsoft solutions will bother looking at them.
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Re:Sad but true. (Score:5, Insightful)
But more than that, they have shown that they understand the industry. They have consistantly backed open source software, and even open sourced previously closed apps like OpenXchange, and the Exchange connector for evolution. They have shown commitment to the vision of a future dominated by Free/Open Source software, and they have consistantly been to bat for us. It may be some time before all proprietary apps are open sourced, including ZenWorks and eDirectory.
Novell does not have an easy road ahead of them but it is far better than any other choice they have. I give them a 70% chance of staying profitable, and a 40% chance of actually taking on the market leadership role. This may seem like a long shot, but Novell is where they are is largely a result of fundamental economic shifts of the industry rather than a set of specific management mistakes-- i.e. if you are in the right economic position (Microsoft), you can survive many serious mistakes, but if you are not, these mistakes take a more serious toll.
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Well, it offers a lot for desktop users... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Sad but true. (Score:5, Informative)
I just set up a mailserver for an ISP up in Idaho using SuSE 9.2. Spamassassin and Postfix installed without a problem, but when I went to install courier-imap and sasl2, I discovered that they didn't include mysql or postrgres support. Luckily it wasn't hard to download the SRPMS and compile them myslef, but it was still a bit annoying.
I sent them an e-mail requesting that they build the rpms to support that, and we'll just have to wait to see if they do.
That said, one of the things I love most about SuSE is yast, which has a wonderful n-curses based tool for when you are logged in via SSH. It really is spectacular. The best thing about it is that people who aren't all that linux savvy can still use yast to configure the box without too much difficulty.
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Re:OpenOffice (Score:5, Insightful)
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What Novell should do. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What Novell should do. and... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am STILL not pleased with the document insert "feature" which, when I insert a document, it goes into a "band", invisibly. When I link to another document and then want to edit from beginning to end, I damn well should be able to SEEEEEEE those linked documents.
Lotus WordPr
Re:What Novell should do. (Score:5, Insightful)
What Novell really needs to do is merge unique features from Netware into Linux, and license much of Apple's proprietary code at any price.
Wow, sounds like a good idea. I'm sure Steve Jobs and Apple would jump at the chance to undercut their own market by allowing Novell to make a low cost Mac alternative!
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Novel's Netware failure is their own fault... (Score:4, Interesting)
I must admit that it was very early in my IT career that I made this switch. Perhaps my inexperience in Netware had something to do with my opinion of it.
Re:Novel's Netware failure is their own fault... (Score:4, Informative)
Odd how quickly people forget these facts. Best part is, Microsoft technically still owes them royalties on every XP disk sold, but Novell isn't forcing it anymore.
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Re:Novel's Netware failure is their own fault... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Novel's Netware failure is their own fault... (Score:4, Informative)
Novell, in my opinion, started to fall apart once it got all crazy with Bordermanager, Groupwise and the other "add-ons" that worked against this legendary stability (Apache for Netware? Ugh). I haven't spent much time using Bordermanager myself, but I can't recall ever seeing an install that was stable in the truest sense of the word.
I know, I know, this isn't a file server world anymore, but it's kind of sad to see what happened to an OS that used to just sit there and run indefinitely while hundreds of users hammered away at it. There is a good reason why the old IT urban legend of the server being drywalled in for years before anyone noticed was running Netware.
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Bunk, my BSD boxes are 1000+ days NOW (Score:5, Informative)
My FreeBSD 4.x boxes are over 1000+ days of uptime now with real load with real business logic running on them.
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Not a legend, true story... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not an urban legend. We (IT) lost track of a NetWare 3.x server used by a small (less than 100) department in a large (more than 20,000) entertainment company.
When it was time to upgrade the department's LAN from TokenRing to Ethernet, we couldn't locate this server. The clients had no idea where it was. They only knew that the all-important J: drive on their PC was there before they were.
It turns out that there used to be a janitor's closet behind shelves, and a large desk pushed up against the shelves, that no one in that department had ever remembered being opened. Certainly no one had the key for it. When it was finally opened, there was the 3.x, chugging away without a care in the world. I don't remember what the box was, but I doubt it held more than 16 megs of RAM.
By that time, the company had pretty gone the Microsoft route, and we were all weary of dealing with the christmas lights like nature of a WindowsNT based network. Needless to say, we were amused and more than a little impressed by this little-engine-that-could.
= 9J =
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Troll here often? (Score:5, Interesting)
ROFL. Yeah, right, sure. And rocks fall upward, and the moon is made of green cheese...
I administered Novell and NT both back in the days you're talking about. Netware 3.x beat NT 3.x so badly, on every possible applicable point, not even the most incompetent admin would have ever made the claim you just did with a straight face.
Microsoft PAYED my employer a huge sum to partially replace our Netware server with an NT 3.5 server. That little netware server was keeping the office served so far as email, web gateway, and file and print serving without a problem. NT on a slightly faster machine proved itself incapable of handling the EMAIL ALONE for the same office, and this AFTER having guys from MS fly down to work on it every couple of weeks for six months.
On top of lack of functionality and lack of stability, it was also impossible to properly admin. It was a total POS and everyone knew it. Even the PHBs were totally upfront about it - they knew it was trash. But whenever we had a problem, MS cut a check (or something to the same end effect) to more than cover the losses.
That's how they won. Novel certainly made mistakes, but that doesn't change the fact that their product was vastly superior and defeated on grounds other than technical.
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Last post!! (Score:3, Insightful)
IBM buy-out? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:IBM buy-out? (Score:3, Insightful)
Novell does have their own flavor of directory services, which is appealing to large organizations who need it to run on a heterogeneous mix of platforms.
The problem is Utah (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The problem is Utah (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The problem is Utah (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The problem is Utah (Score:5, Informative)
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Disastrous acquisition of WordPerfect? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Disastrous acquisition of WordPerfect? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can still try out their beta [planetmirror.com] if you would like, though ironically for a "write once run anywhere" suite you'll be hard pressed to find a browser old enough to run it.
The subsequent version of WP was recoded in C and C++.
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Requisite Suse Rules post (Score:5, Insightful)
YaST is probably one of the best system tools I've used on any Linux distribution, and hopefully we will see some really great things once we see some (forgive the buzz word) synergy between Suse and Ximian.
Still miss NDS (Score:3, Insightful)
This crazy world makes no sense.
Correct me if I'm wrong but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Novell dead? Not by a longshot (Score:5, Informative)
Beat RedHat (Score:4, Interesting)
Employing someone to waste time trying to install Debian on something which cannot guarantee a pay off is not fun, and is a waste of money as well for the customer.
The thing is, the hardware vendor doesn't take Debian seriously (because it's not backed by a company with resources), so there is no driver disk or hardware support.
What I am trying to say is this:- there is a niche here that needs to be filled. There is a need for companies with the ability to back Linux distros, even if just for customer peace of mind. They will pay money for it. So far, only RedHat is being taken seriously commercially IMHO.
There is no "swamped" Linux market, or at least, not in my situation as far as I can tell. Only blimmin' RedHat Linux is supported and will install on our blade server.....
Novel Linux (Score:5, Informative)
For anyone serious about an enterprise level linux novel is the only real choice.
other options (Score:5, Interesting)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=NOVL&annual [yahoo.com]
While their installed base is certainly not what it once was, they have a solid reputation, still significant installed base, and from what I remember, a decent size pile of cash (771,844 at last quarterly report) to fall back on.
In other words, exactly where SCO might have been if they had not made a different sort of bet. (i.e. running a business of making products, selling support and consulting services, etc. Not to start an SCO love fest, but once upon a time they were a well regarded company).
Wrong wrong wrong wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Second:
"it is getting excited about the version of KDE that will accompany SuSE Linux 10 next year. This is based on Mono, another Novell takeover, which aims to provide a development environment that will run Java and Microsoft.net on Linux"
KDE has nothing to do with Mono. The author probably meant Ximian Gnome, but that doesn't even make the statement true, and wtf does Mono have to do with Java?
SuSE + Ximian + Mono + Novell = Good prospects in my book. Granted Novell management has a long history of screwing things up, but this product line looks pretty promising. In fact, full disclosure I put my money where my mouth is and purchased some amount of Novell stock.
Re:Wrong wrong wrong wrong (Score:4, Informative)
From the Mono frontpage [mono-project.com]:
Mono is a platform for running and developing modern applications, based on the ECMA/ISO Standards. Mono can run existing programs targeting the
And also, from the Mono Java page [mono-project.com]:
Execution of Java code in Mono today is done with IKVM (http://www.ikvm.net [ikvm.net]) the Java virtual machine that runs on top of the Common Language Infrastructure.
Today IKVM is fully supported by Mono and its part of the standard Mono package distribution. As it stands today, it is able to run popular applications like Eclipse and Derby.
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tried suse enterprise, didnt cut it.. heres why.. (Score:5, Insightful)
perhaps its just because im not the type to use the 'gui' approach to things, not that its a bad thing.
it either didnt have drivers for hardware that we needed to function, or had quirks with those drivers, or needed special treatment.
HOWEVER, that being said i installed it on a plain machine... and the installation was flawless.
I dont like yast, it was good for getting things to work, but I ended up in a console with a text editor editing configs anyhow.
the cups and samba portions in yast are just completely barebones.
the built-in kde conguration tool is far more powerful with regards to samba configuration than yast is.
I dont hate suse, it just didnt fit our needs, and upgrades failed way too easily. these machines we need, they are critical. I could not have a machine fail after an upgrade. after several of these failed upgrades i said enough is enough and switched the suse machines out with gentoo machines.
so, that why I switched it out.
it needs some more polishing, but granted some of my own personal preferences were trampled by it and thats part of it, for sure.
I will try it again in the future, I keep my eyes on most ditros, except for micro$oft linux. (redhat)
but between debian and gentoo and upgrading, I think its a tie. both do it very well, and with very little pain.
suse left me hanging more than once with a trashed system. either it didnt boot or it was really b0rked.
I say, give it a shot. it works fine as long as you dont have like bleeding edge hardware.
(like some sata controllers, ect)
Novell Apologists Unite (Score:4, Insightful)
by Merrill R. Chapman, to get a good feel for why Netware went by the wayside. Its wasn't the 'suits' that killed them, it was the engineers. They had a bunch of egotisical engineers who refused to build what the market wanted. Yes, it is/was a fast stable file server. But thats about it. You couldn't really run apps on it. And when the clients of the world are all running Windows, and Netware is expensive and difficult to use with Windows, there you go.
Revenue will be their biggest challenge (Score:5, Informative)
NetWare is still pretty expensive on the server. A 50-user copy is about $150 a seat on CDW retail ($7,500), about $50 a seat under a licensing agreement ($2,500).
SuSE is $999 per server with no client licenses fees.
Figuring NetWare to be about 50% of Novell's one billion in revenue, that means Novell would stand to lose more that 25% of their total revenue assuming everyone switched to SuSE. Novell might make this up with SuSE/Ximian desktop revenue, but I see large amounts of revenue from Linux on the desktop as being a long time in the making.
The estimates for SuSE revenue for 2003 were for about $40 million in revenue. As near as I can tell Ximan never really made any money to speak of.
So, if I haven't bored anyone to death yet, Novell NetWare is a $500 million revenue stream, SuSE is a $40 million revenue stream. Novell needs to very carefully transition from NetWare to SuSE if they want to keep revenue even. They can also grow by taking customers from Microsoft or Red Hat. But, it appears to me that Novell will have to shrink about 25% in size in order to remain profitable in the short term. Red Hat, with a more mature Linux strategy, only made $100 million in the last four quarters.
None of this is a bad thing, and I wish Novell the best of luck. I used to work there, and I still have friends there. Just doing the math though it seems like they will need to get smaller before they get bigger again.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
I, for one, hope Novell makes a go of it, but the world is unfortunately a harsh place.
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Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
It goes all ways. I'm sure Sun's price cuts were in response to Red Hat and Novell, but it also is a nice stiff jab at Microsoft, too. This is ultimately a good thing for everyone, as we are seeing competition drive prices down.
Has anyone noticed that Microsoft is now the highest priced vendor? Ironic that UNIX was the high vendor not even a decade ago.
I think in the long-term, the companies with hardware and services wings (e.g., Sun and IBM) will probably fare the best. Microsoft is pretty much software-only, which is an industry becoming more price competitive than Wal-Mart.
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Re: cashflow & Market share (Score:5, Interesting)
It is true that their share of server sales has dwindled from a high of 80% down to low double digits. You can actually see that the impact of the introduction of WinNT. Over more recent years, the decline is actually due to Linux. What people frequently misunderstand is that this relates to NEW server sales.
What is not mentioned is the actual installed base. In this arena, Novell is huge. IIRC, a study that I saw put it at something like 3 to 5 million machines are running Netware.That's far more than all *nix combined, and was only matched by Windows.
Installed base == support/maintenance/upgrade revenue - ie services revenue. Novell has a cash cow there, that's for sure. Check out their 10Qs. And I should note that all their other 'businesses' - be it identity or ex Collabra or whatever are basically immaterial in comparison to their "software division formerly known as Netware".
But that revenue is still not sufficient. It was clear that if they didn't buy SUSE, they would lose their installed base to Linux for file/print services over time. And BTW, the Linux NEW server sales have been increasing rapidly. I always see that Linux is increasing at the expense of Windows and/or Unix, but never Novell. That is what surprised me most in my travels....
Obviously, migrating existing customers from Netware to Linux doesn't prevent leakage to either Windows or other Linux flavors, but now, they at least have a clear path for customers, and it will probably be the easiest path for their installed base.
Anways, that's my rant. And I wish Novell the best of luck. Successful linux companies will mean even better corporate acceptance.
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Re: cashflow & Market share (Score:5, Insightful)
Being Novell they have street cred. Netware gives them a wedge into big businesses which no other Linux distro has. And I think they know and understand the businesses' needs better than any of the others, and have the tools to complement Linux to cater to those companies (Zen, identy management and such).
I think Novell and SUSE make a good fit. SUSE now has a desktop platform which they can work WITH, and not AGAINST.
They're clearly aware of it, and their CC EAL4+ certification was part of their plan, a certification which I think only SUSE still holds (among the Linux distros).
What the article could have mentioned is that Novell is proving to their customer that they can do without Windows, migrating internally to Linux desktops (see Joe Barr's http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/03/23/
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Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt that matters. It's not really law anyway, because it's open to wildly varying interpretations. Law is objective, anti-trust "law" is subjective.
Really, who would sue? Novell couldn't last that long in court without cashflow. However long they could last would probably just result in a settlement much less generous than that with Sun & MS.
So let's say a state or the feds sue. MS would just drag it out, and since there is no smoking gun, nothing will really happen. What if the states win? What do they do? Anything the states do against MS would just be hitting the stockholders. And by stockholders, I mean the retired people living on diversified investment income. The execs have already made the money from the "anticompetitive" behavior, probably much of it in terms of huge bonuses.
Anti trust law is a mess. It doesn't really accomplish anything. After all, they went after IBM, and what happened? Now we have MS. Nothing was solved.
I'll tell you what REALLY solves the problem. Instead of a state suing, why doesn't it just boycott MS products? Same with the feds. I bet the monopoly would be broken very quickly. Remember, the states are the ones perpetuating the MS monopoly by buying huge amounts of software and introducing it in schools. If California stopped buying, that alone would fracture the market enough to destroy the technology monoculture.
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