There as always losses when you've been developing a new product, but haven't actually sold it yet, and other losses incurred when acquiring a new company. It remains to be seen how the Linux deal with Novell will work out.
Novell is only now getting their Linux products to market. Sure, they've had some to sell, but they've only been rebranded Suse products.
Novell has had eDirectory and Identity Manager for Linux for some time now. Novell is now selling OES (Open Enterprise Server), which is the NetWare network services, which can be installed either on Suse Linux Enterprise Server, or on NetWare (technically, NetWare 6.5 SP3). They've also released GroupWise for Linux, Novell Linux Desktop, and Novell Linux Small Business Server, which is OES, GroupWise for Linux, and NLD, bundled for small businesses. And Novell is about to release Zenworks for Linux, a network management package.
Novell has also ramped up their education divisions in Linux, and hopefully that will help bring people up to speed on Linux. Novell has a reputation for having some of the best courses in the industry. They've also poured a lot of money into training their support staff in Linux, so if you're having a problem, they should be able to resolve it.
Who knows where Novell's future will be... I spoke with a Novell insider not too long ago, who said that Novell could come up with a NetWare OS server that prints $100 bills 24/7, and they still wouldn't be able to sell it. It's because many who make decisions in the IT departments bought into the idea that if it's not Microsoft, then it's not worth doing. It's a shame too, when you consider the technology and software quality behind Novell's products. In a few more years, Active Directory might be a trouble free, extensible, and scalable as eDirectory. And Zenworks just blows away SMS for managing workstations on the network, while integrating with group policies seamlessly. It all boils down to bad marketing and not being interested in being price competative, knowing that they had the better product, they didn't feel they needed to compete. They were wrong.
Mark
Nice defense of Novell, but I'm one of the guys that replaced Netware with Windows since it was easier to use and handled memory and multiple procoessors better back in the mid 90's, marketing had nothing to do with it. As for whether Linux will ever replace their Netware revenue, maybe, but as it stands they bring in more from non-Linux products per quarter ($289 million) than market leading Red Hat Linux brought in all of last year ($196 million). Yes, that's all Red Hat brought in last year, despite being far and away the top Linux vendor (Novell only brought in $8 million from Linux) and all the hype surrounding it. Bottom line - not much money to be made in free software, especially if you're used to bringing in over a billion a year.