* There's still value left in the old products
Today I’ve got some follow up on a couple of topics we’ve covered recently.
First, you may remember that a Novell competitor, Mirapoint, targeted both the enterprise market and the system integrator channel market regarding GroupWise as an ‘obsolete’ platform. We had that memorable quote from Mirapoint exec Craig Carpenter, saying that, “Novell conjures to implode.”
Now another company has come out with a service to help you migrate GroupWise – and it’s Novell!
Yes, Novell wants you to move your GroupWise from NetWare to Linux, so it is “…developing the GroupWise Server Migration Utility. The utility will transfer GroupWise agents, domains, post offices and data from a NetWare server to a Linux server.”
Why would you want to do this? According to the link above, “From low cost, Intel-based hardware and consolidation opportunities to a wealth of open source software and freedom from vendor lock-in, the benefits of Linux are significant.” But NetWare runs on “low cost, Intel-based hardware,” doesn’t it? And it doesn’t “lock you in” to Novell any more than SuSE does, right? But the company really does want you to give up that NetWare platform – and sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, that NetWare platform (and Open Enterprise Server) continue to generate more revenue for Novell than SuSE does and that’s not consistent with how the company wishes to be perceived.
Just last week, I analyzed Novell’s third quarter revenue stream and found that “…OES ($45 million), identity products ($26 million) and GroupWise ($25 million)” were “about 40% of the company’s revenue.” There was one legacy product I forgot to include in that total, but eagle-eyed Martin Buckley, Novell director of product management was quick to remind me that ZENworks (in the “Resource management” group) contributed more than $33 million in revenue. Add that in, and the legacy products contributed more than half of the revenue (approx. 54%) the company reported. Way to go ZENfolk!
Now I’m not running the company, nor has CEO Ron Hovsepian ever called to ask my advice (Jack Messman never did either, although both Ray Noorda and Eric Schmidt did). But if I had a platform as efficient, robust and secure as NetWare, with products that belong “in the network” (rather than, say, on an insecure Windows server or a less-than-robust Linux server) I’d look closely at developing “appliancized” versions of GroupWise, ZENworks, Identity Manager and other applications and services that could simply plug and play into the network. Cheap Intel-based hardware coupled with the most secure server operating system of the past 25 years sounds like a good way to generate income, don’t you think?
