I apologize for taking cheap shots at Pat Bernard. I have looked at a number of Novell threads on your site as well as CRN and there seemed to a general unfamiliarity as to who Pat Barnard was. Maybe this is because Pat Bernard did nothing to help the small integrators win business in the field. Maybe it is because we had seen nothing positive during her tenure.

They had a model back in the 2.x and 3.x days where if you invested in training and acquired a Gold Reseller status, one could compete against the online retailers on price and still make a liveable margin. Nowadays the tables have turned and there is no way for us to match the street prices on their products and make a consistently healthy margins, in spite of how much money we spend on training.

In summation, I think Pat must have been an important player for a number of Novell’s large partners, but she didn’t change anything for the better, from my vantage point.

I think your statement (from another thread) that there is no money in selling servers and server O/S’s, is just flat out wrong. Our margins average between 25% and 30% on hardware and software with our value-add component and we have strung together a number of good years doing it and see no end to it. Maybe it is the SMB space that you are not fully up-to-date on.

Once again, I meant no disrespect and I apologize. And I also was untruthful in wishing her all the best as I never knew her, nor did I know who she was until she retired. So I guess I will retract the ‘wish her well’ statement.

It would be interesting to elaborate more on this. I wonder how he thinks the channel strategy has been successful. Have their sales met some quote? Have they reached a certain level of marketshare? Is the adoption rate increasing to their satifaction?

Whether Pat was a guy, a girl or even possibly a transgender, we wish him, her, or it all the best.

Linux and OES/NetWare are sustained via internal and channel partners (IBM, MS, SAP, HP, Accenture, and many regional ones for the OES business).

Identity business is hurting ‘big-time’ and this is due to the lack of execution. The CEO has provided the leadership but those who need to execute (The ex Sr VP of Sales and the Channel Guy) have not. They do not have the channel developed for the Identity business and without it they cannot sustain the business so heads are being chopped.

Ron is good…you got 6-9 months to prove yourself or you are out!