Attachmate Reorganizes Novell, SUSE Linux and NetIQ Assets
May. 18th, 2011 by The VAR Guy
In three separate announcements today, Attachmate, Novell and SUSE Linux disclosed their organization structures going forward. The news surfaces a few weeks after Attachmate completed its acquisition of Novell. Here’s the update plus perspectives from The VAR Guy.
The moves include:
- Novell is returning to Provo, Utah, and refocusing on end-user computing solutions. The business unit will promote Open Enterprise Server (NetWare’s successor) and Novell GroupWise and Novell ZENworks endpoint management solutions. Bob Flynn serves as president and general manager. The VAR Guy’s Spin: Our resident blogger wonders if this business unit can drive growth, given Open Enterprise Server’s limited adoption.
- SUSE is a new business unit focused on Linux. Nils Brauckmann, a 20-year industry veteran with both Attachmate and Novell heritage, leads the SUSE organization. The VAR Guy’s Spin: According to SEC documents, Attachmate originally did not bid on SUSE as part of the proposed Novell acquisition. So The VAR Guy will be watching to see how Attachmate manages the SUSE business going forward. This could definitely be a growth unit…
- NetIQ, a business unit of Attachmate, gains Novell’s identity and security management solutions. Jay Gardner serves as president and general manager. John Delk is VP, focused on global alliances and the Americas Partner Organization. New Novell products such as Novell Cloud Security Service shift into this business unit. The VAR Guy’s Spin: There are some key growth opportunities in this business unit. The VAR Guy will be curious to see how Attachmate manages “Novell” branded products across (A) the Novell business unit and (B) the NetIQ business unit.
The VAR Guy will take a closer look at each business unit to see how the channel teams will be organized. Attachmate and Novell have previously stated that Novell’s partner program benefits remain unchanged.
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Lets get a grip, and a clue here. For the last 10+ years Novell has been a place where the top 5-10 executives have been milking large paychecks from the place. And the Microsoft partnership deal allowed them to do it more-so, as it provided more cash for Novell not having to do much – other than play by the rules of Microsoft.
Looks and feels like a similar song here at Attachmate. Milk whatever revenue they can from the Suse business, and keep “co-operating” with Microsoft so that the cash keeps flowing into the business unit. In parallel reduce expenses so that the Microsoft cash + whatever cash Suse brings in on its own, provides a nice profit margin to pay fat salary and bonus packages to the top guys.
Not saying this is bad business, as what this is is “pure business” in terms of generating $ for the owners. It is similar to what one of the Hambrecht and Quist business units was famous for doing in the 1980’s and 1990’s – finding bums in the street, putting an IV in one arm to make them stand up, then putting the IV in the other arm and draining the cash/fluid slowly over time.
I think people should just accept this for what it is – neither Suse, nor any of the Novell pieces, will not be innovators or leaders in anything. They will milk, milk, milk things.
Do you see any respected “technologists” being part of the story. Sure they may attract some washed up old veterans as technology guys (look at the history of Novell CTO’s in the last 10 years), but it is about the last place any forward thinking, driven technology folks would want to work.
I could not have said it better myself. This company and their respective products are a total non-sequiter. Hovsepian got rich, the shareholders suffered and Novell got intellectually lazy living off the Microsoft dole. I’ve said it before, I will say it again, who besides M$ and SAP ever bought anything from Novell? Want to kill off Platespin? Have Novell purchase them. Look, I don’t mean to pick on anyone here but who in their right mind would bet their business on anything from Novell? Other than fodder for what will become of SUSE (it is dead regardless of what anyone says), why would anyone even care?
Thoma Bravo just acquired Tripwire, another security company, although at least Tripwire has market leading products. Thoma Bravo also owns….drumroll please…Attachmate/NetIQ/Novell. Wonder what the plan is there? Bring Tripwire into the Attachmate Group fold? That makes 3 SIEM products for 3 companies in the Thomas portfolio plus the various compliance reporting and identity management ones, too. Sounds like these guys will have their plates full for some time trying to figure out which products will stay and which ones will go.
Bill,
You’re right about the former management, they badly damaged Novell and did nothing to stop customers from leaving. Their run was embarrassing. Majority shareholders deserve blame too. Novell’s upper management and the board was entirely too short sighted and they expected technology, of which quality control has dropped somewhat, to win out.
So, on to Attachmate. How do you know what they are going to do with the Novell portfolio, outside of conjecture? What do you want them to do, clone Steve Jobs and start selling multi-colored servers with Suse linux snow leopard edition on them? I don’t know what your point about respected technologists actually is. I can’t think of one respected technologist that works on workgroup, workstation management, or email software packages. They just need good people, not necessarily people who are talked about on tech blogs.
It could very well end up that what you’re guessing at turns out to be true and they just bleed the products and customers dead and don’t hire the right people to innovate on the tech side of things. I really think that the tech side is the least of their problems. The real problems are the lack of customers. They’ll have to make some bold moves to get customers back. Unless the Microsoft deal of years ago has any provision that limit them from competing openly, that deal is irrelevant to the current situation. They have to rebuild their customer base through any means possible and long term profits will come. If they don’t, then they will continue the slide to irrelevancy.