* Hovsepian speaks about his new role as CEO
Perhaps I was too quick to cast aspersions at Novell’s choice of Ron Hovsepian as its new CEO. I have lots of feedback on the newsletter I wrote a few weeks ago and almost all of it has been favorable to Hovsepian. In particular, quite a few people within Novell, people whose opinion I value, people who bemoaned the company’s lack of progress under Jack Messman’s stewardship, have stepped up to say that Hovsepian could be just what the company needs to move it forward again. As one insider (and one I’ve quoted many times in these pages) said: “General consensus among the Novell employees I know is that Ron Hovsepian’s ascendence to CEO is both well deserved and that he’s the right man for the job.”
Hovsepian also gave a good impression in an interview he recently gave to Network World’s Phil Hochmuth. I especially liked that he acknowledged that the migration from NetWare to Linux isn’t going as fast as the company has implied in the past that it is occurring. While 80% of the customer base is using Open Enterprise Server, the ability to choose either a Linux or a NetWare core system environment means that many traditional NetWare customers are still choosing the NetWare path. The next version of OES will be solely Linux based but with NetWare running as a virtualized service. Hovsepian noted that creating the virtualized environment was a positive step but it won’t mean anything if the company can’t bring the NetWare base through the migration to Linux.
Hovsepian was also pretty pragmatic about the push to bring Linux to the desktop, even noting that Novell’s heralded move to have Linux running on every company desktop is only 94% complete. “It’s important to be realistic about the rollout of the desktop,” he says. “We don’t actually expect all enterprises will become Linux-based in the next 12 months.”
Still, he also is quoted as saying: “We just have to drive a level of simplification into our business processes and our business model.” That could mean that the suggestions some investors have made to slim down the product line by removing things such as GroupWise and ZENworks could be about to happen. There’s been no other indications of that, but I will keep watching the tea leaves! Speaking of which, there’s strong internal evidence (which I can’t quote directly) that BorderManager 3.9 is about to ship. Stay tuned.
