Novell's marketing chief, John Slitz, resigned abruptly last week, leaving a void in the company that is seeking to revitalize itself around Internet operations.
Slitz, brought in by Chairman Eric Schmidt in 1997 from IBM, was the man Novell looked to for marketing Novell Directory Services (NDS) and the company's flagship product, NetWare 5.
Novell completed its turn-around, but in the absence of Slitz, it is questionable whether the company can maintain its marketing momentum. Before Slitz took over marketing at Novell, the company sustained an active barrage of criticism in the press and user community for its lack of marketing action.
The resignation occurred at the same time as the delay of a rumored partnership announcement with NetVision, a developer of software for running NDS on multiple platforms, including NetWare 3.x and Banyan Vines. NDS, at present, operates only on NetWare 4.x and 5.x OS/390, Solaris and Windows NT. NetWare 3.x is based on a flat-file database called the Bindery. NDS for NT requires a NetWare 4.x or 5.x. server.
Slitz is leaving August 31. Novell is currently seeking a replacement.
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