Novell shakes up management again

Chris Stone, vice chairman of Novell, followed up on promises to shake up management at Novell today by announcing the appointment of a new vice president of engineering and the departures of several Novell executives.

Novell named Stone to the position of vice chairman of Novell last week to make changes at the company that once dominated the network operating system market. This week, Stone and CEO Jack Messman announced that Carl Ledbetter, Novell's senior vice president and CTO would be responsible for engineering, research and development and product management.

Following Ledbetter's appointment, Martin Deise, vice president of solutions, Craig Miller, vice president of the Net Management Group and Paul Smart, vice president of Net Directory Services left the company. Novell would not comment on who will replace them, but sources say that more changes will become known as soon as Brainshare, the company's annual user conference that will take place March 18-22 in Salt Lake City.

Stone's rise to the no. 2 position at Novell, portends additional changes in management at the beleaguered company, sources close to the company say. They also say that other managers who formerly worked for Miller and Smart will leave the company in the near future.

"There's a second tier of names that are supposedly on the list," says a source, who declined to be identified. "You are going to see a natural attrition or the new management will show up and start reorganizing people into positions they don't like and they'll leave."

While a Novell spokesman confirmed the changes, he would not indicate whether there would be other management changes.

Whether the management changes at Novell will be successful in effecting the changes at Novell that Stone promises, is not known.