When Novell announces quarterly results Feb. 26, The VAR Guy will be looking beyond earnings per share results and revenue metrics. Our resident blogger wants Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian (pictured) to cover — in depth — the following five points during the earnings call.
Top Five Priorities for Earnings Call:
1. More Than A SUSE Linux Company: Hovsepian needs to describe each of the core Novell product groups, and how they fit together to form a company that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Listen closely for info about Novell’s security and identity management efforts.
2. Staffing: Novell in early February confirmed that it had cut fewer than 100 positions — far less than some blogosphere rumors. However, ongoing layoff rumors continue to hound Novell. Hovsepian needs to reinforce Novell’s staffing plans for those in the media who have ignored his statements so far.
3. Novell’s Partner Program: Novell has finally introduced deal registration and other basic services to partners. How are partners reacting to deal registration, and does deal registration offer any clues about future Novell revenue from the partner pipeline?
4. Independent Software Vendors: Novell often crows about SAP and Microsoft backing SUSE Linux. But it’s time for Novell to brag about additional ISVs (independent software vendors) that are embracing SUSE Linux.
5. From the Desktop to the Datacenter?: Novell frequently describes SUSE Linux as a platform that goes from desktops to datacenters. But how is Novell extending SUSE into the world of cloud computing? Yes, IBM plans to offer SUSE Linux in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). But it’s time for Novell to be far more vocal about its own cloud strategy.
Of course, The VAR Guy also wants to hear about Novell’s earnings per share — the ultimate metric for a company’s success. But sometimes, those short-term financial results don’t reveal how a company will perform over the long haul.
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The headline in LXer is very telling (“Novell: Pushing Beyond SUSE Linux On Feb. 26″). Novell hardly cares about what used to be in 2004.
Novell’s future direction will be more Microsoft technologies like Mono and Go-OOXML.
Novell is set to announce layoffs next week (the executives are enjoying a vacation in Mexico).
People are advised to google “Sonsini”. Novell was going out of business prior to the deal with Microsoft (there were also problems with the NASDAQ), so it sold its soul in exchange for a cash infusion.
Ah yes, Mono…
Is there a reason they named this after a disease besides allowing for easy and cheap analogies?
This is by far the most positive Novell article this month, do you know something others dont?
It really cant help Novell’s battered image that Red Hat did a deal with Microsoft and that unlike Novell’s answer to extortion, Red Hat has gotten a lot of kudos from the same community.
Doing a deal with Microsoft isnt a crime. Red Hat has shown how to do it and NOT feed the FUD machine.
Considering that Red Hat customers all owe Microsoft money for using Linux: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B0GTYfPoMo , that was quite a feat.
Its telling that almost all analysts have compared the RH and Novell deals.
Rene: How is the article positive? Just because our resident blogger didn’t trash Novell, somehow he’s too positive on Novell?
The VAR Guy is asking the hard question: Is Novell really anything more than a SUSE Linux company?
Side note: You’re right about Red Hat/MSFT. It seems to be a good deal for everyone, focused on the right need — virtualization interoperability for customers.
More NOVL coverage on Feb.26. Stay tuned.
I see the Novell bashers are still at it. The Novell-Microsoft deal was irrelevant to Linux and FOSS as I said at the time, and it still is.
The Red Hat deal verifies that. Just because Microsoft decided to back down on the patent indemnification requirement doesn’t mean Red Hat isn’t doing the exact same sort of deal Novell made with Microsoft.
It’s just that the Novell bashers want one of the three or four main Linux distros to go under just to feed their “moral crusade.”
> I see the Novell bashers are still at it.
What does “Novell bashers” mean? People who say the truth?
This is not stand-up comedy. There is no “bashing”.
> Just because Microsoft decided to back down on the patent indemnification requirement doesn’t mean Red Hat isn’t doing the exact same sort of deal Novell made with Microsoft.
You don’t seem to get it. The patent deal, in contravention of the intent of the GPL, is *exactly* what was wrong with the Novell deal. Novell and Microsoft *specifically* looked for a loophole to exploit. If the deal was just about interoperability, I may have raised an eyebrow and wondered if it was wise, but I wouldn’t have been angry. I don’t know whether the RH deal is wise. Time will tell …
> It’s just that the Novell bashers want one of the three or four main Linux distros to go under just to feed their “moral crusade.”
I can’t speak for others, but I did *not* want Novell to fail until they flipped the bird at the free software community. Indeed, perhaps foolishly, I had high hopes for them pushing GNU/Linux on the corporate desktop after RH lost interest in the desktop. Indeed I stared at astonishment at the screen when I read about the patent deal thinking “this isn’t happening!” Initially my reaction was confusion and rage. After a few days it was just rage. And still is.
Roy: you’ve been caught in so many lies it’s not even funny. You accuse EVERYONE of being a paid shill who disagrees with you. You constantly accuse innocent people of things they aren’t guilty of, be thankful that no one you have attacked has decided to sue you for libel.
Jeremy,
Please provide examples. You make vague accusations.
I am a reseller. I add value to the sale, so I guess that makes me what they call a Value-Added Reseller or a VAR, for short. All this squabbling has nothing to do with VARs. I don’t care if they are a SUSE/Linux company or more. I don’t care if Novell and RedHat are both bedmates with Microsoft or just one of them. It is interesting about the exec trip to Mexico, meanwhile the ship is sinking. I don’t care if they buy another consulting company. I don’t care if half of their revenue is from Microsoft and the other half is once again halved between their direct efforts and their reseller efforts.
What is in it for me, the VAR? If I am a VAR looking at providing an open source solution to my customer, what should I recommend and why? How do they treat their resellers? Are they more like Dell/Cisco or more like Microsoft/Symantec in the way they treat their partners. Are they going to continue to rely on the 4 online retailers for the bulk of their business? Do they want the SMB business? And if so, are they planning to use the channel, and if so, how do they expect to use the channel when there is no money in the software sale. Ubutu smootoo. I don’t care. I only care about myself. The VAR. That is why I get on sites like theVARGuy.com. I want to know where technology is headed, but most importantly where can I concentrate my efforts as a VAR to make the most profit and be most successful. All the rest of this info is worthless to me and I don’t care!
SUSE is having trouble now…
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/23388/1090/
“The OpenSUSE project, a group that develops a Linux distribution that then feeds into Novell’s SUSE Linux, has been hit recently by the layoffs at Novell.
[…]
“Another thing that Bleser and Yunashko have stated is that they look forward to having those who were laid off continue working with the project. It strikes one as a tad insensitive to expect people who are thrown out on the dustheap by a company to still retain interest in a project run by the same company, but maybe there is a greater spirit of altruism among these unfortunate souls than among the masses.”
Hurdy gurdy I agree with you. I am looking at starting my own business as a var or a consultant but trying to decide from a financial perspective where open source fits in. Unfortunately, every where I turn I run into these JUVENILEs and their idiotic arguments. I would like to come to the VAR GUY’s site to get good solid information; unfortunately it seems that some people especially one guy who is all over the internet with his garbage gets in the way. You cannot have an adult conversation without these idiots showing up.
Garbage? You mean, /not/ PR?
var-to-be,
I think the resident blogger here is fairly impartial. And you have to admit theVARguy.com has ‘VAR’ as their middle name. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste much time on the:
theEvilManufacturerOuttoScrewtheSmallVAR.com or theLargeBoxPusherWhoringUpthePricingfortheSmallVAR.com as these sites are not going to help you grow your business.