* Don't forget the NetWare loyalists when wooing Linux fans
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” -anon.
There, in a nutshell, is my hope for Novell in not only the coming year, but in all subsequent years. Still, you’d probably feel deprived if this newsletter only contained fifty words or less, so I’ll expand on that thought and offer up three resolutions for Novell. If the resolutions are followed, the venerable vendor and erstwhile networking giant should once again be king of the hill in networked computers. If you read the last issue, you’ll know just how much attention Novell pays to my New Year’s Resolution suggestions of 2003.
The resolutions I’m offering concern Novell’s behavior towards its three key constituencies in 2004 and beyond. The first group is the NetWare loyalists, while the second is the Linux loyalists. The third, and largest, group is made up of those former NetWare users as well as the never-used-NetWare users who are firmly embedded on the Intel-Windows networking platform. Let’s start with the NetWare stalwarts.
1) Novell must continue to reassure the NetWare loyalists (as well as the longtime users of GroupWise, eDirectory, ZENworks and other “traditional” Novell software offerings) that they won’t be left behind.
There will continue to be both support and innovation for the platforms they have chosen and that, when the time comes to move on to a different platform (as it invariably will), the transition and migration will be as painless as possible.
The Linux loyalists have suffered a tremendous buffering in 2003. First there was SCO, which, like a recalcitrant 2-year-old, discovered the power of the word “no” to really enrage people. Then there was Red Hat’s realization that you can’t continue to give away software and still hope to be profitable. So Red Hat decided to concentrate solely on Red Hat Enterprise services, which (some analysts believe) will cost you more to install and maintain than Windows networking will.
When SuSE sold out to Novell (“Isn’t Novell next door to SCO?” – one wag asked) the doom-and-gloom prone thought they were seeing the end of the Linux world as they knew it. Novell needs to reach out to these people.
2) Novell needs to continue to speak out to Linux and open source audiences and assure them that Novell is on their side and will continue to produce world-class software for sale to the enterprise and freely distribute to the hobbyists, tinkerers and developers.
It will be better to be late on a delivery than to deliver half-baked software (something Novell has done far too often in the recent past).
For the “great unwashed,” the hoi-polloi – the large number of network managers and users who are either fallen-away NetWarians or who have never known the benefits of NetWare – Novell will need to embark, with missionary zeal, on a plan to win them over.
3) Novell needs to continually let people know about its new capabilities as a services platform, particularly in the amorphous field of Web services.
Tools like the Apache Web server are actually category leaders and best sellers, so Novell needs to emphasize that fact along with its traditional mantra of “We offer best-in-class software.” But it needs to do this without antagonizing either Microsoft or Windows loyalists. That’s quite a tightrope to walk.
So there you have it, three resolutions for Novell: 1) don’t ignore the NetWare loyalists; 2) coddle and comfort the Linux loyalists; and 3) proselytize everybody else. We’ll check back next year to see how well it did.
