Execs, users and industry experts talk about what's working - and what's not.
Novell is three years into its transformation from a NetWare-centric software vendor to first and foremost a member in good standing of the Linux community. Along the way there has been great debate about the fate of the company’s legacy products, including NetWare, and a complete overhaul of upper management.
But there’s no longer any debate about the centrality of Linux to the company’s future. What follows is a sampling of Network’s World‘s recent Novell-as-a-Linux-company coverage.
Q&A: New Novell CEO in all-out Linux push
Novell’s new CEO Ronald Hovsepian and current CTO Jeffrey Jaffe have a lot to talk about, as the company refocuses on open-source software following an executive shakeup in June. Both executives gave some insights on Novell’s strategy to use the majority of its resources – support, marketing, sales, product development and some $1.4 billion in cash reserves – to become a full-fledged Linux company. The CEO and CTO also talked about why everyone should have a Linux desktop pilot running.
Does a reinvented Novell matter anymore?
As the company prepares to trumpet its focus on serving the open enterprise at its annual BrainShare conference this week, industry observers remain mixed on whether the former networking powerhouse has a relevant place in today’s corporate software market.
Review: SLES 10 server provides virtualization, availabilityNovell’s latest cut of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offers a cocktail of new features that should be appealing to enterprise customers and service providers, provided they can steer around the few problems we found during our testing.Novell scrambles to fend off Linux on its old home turf
Jim Pulliam remembers his disbelief when he first arrived in Utah to take over as CIO of Salt Lake Community College two years ago.
Novell preps users for move to LinuxNovell used its BrainShare conference last week to elaborate on its product migration path to Linux, and included an assurance to customers that it will support NetWare well into the next decade.Q&A: Novell president vows to crank up its marketing, Linux strategy
Novell’s second-in-command is Ron Hovsepian, who was promoted to president and COO in November 2005. Previously executive vice president and president of Novell’s global field operations, Hovsepian filled the spot that Chris Stone, as vice chairman, had vacated in November 2004.
Higgins lays out road map for open source identity projectIBM, Novell and a group of academics working on an open source project designed to tie together applications and identity systems plan to ship the first release of their code next summer.Novell gets more ‘passionate’ about LinuxIf you ask any Novell watcher to rate the software vendor’s abilities, the chances are that observer will give the company a low grade for marketing. Novell has struggled with how to position its products for years and now hopes it’s finally on the right track with a new focus for its Suse Linux distribution.Can open source still save Novell?When Novell releases its fourth-quarter financial results next week, industry observers will be looking for signs of whether the company’s big bet on Linux is starting to pay off. So far Novell has had little to show even though the Linux market is booming. Industry watchers say Novell needs to more forcefully pull away from its proprietary software roots to win over open source supporters.
