Posted on 03/23/2006 5:46:01 PM PST by Utah Girl
For Novell's chief marketing strategist, the news Wednesday couldn't have been better: Microsoft had once more postponed release of Windows Vista.
"Why, I feel bad for them," he quipped, holding up a copy of USA Today with a headline trumpeting, "Microsoft Delays New Windows" as the Salt Palace convention crowd of several thousand cheered.
Dragoon noted that the current test version of Vista had reportedly been found by reviewers to be short on "finesse, polish and general impressiveness" in its bid to replace Windows XP, which debuted in late 2001.
"I don't know if you guys knew that [Vista] was originally expected to be ready by end of 2004," Dragoon added. "The last time I checked, it is 2006."
Microsoft says its consumer version of Vista will be released in January. Corporate buyers who purchase volume licenses should be able to get the upgrade in November.
Novell's SUSE Linux 10, along with its family of desktop, communications, mobile and networking applications, is ready now, Dragoon said.
"And I can guarantee that what you see today [in the conference demonstration] will be impressive, will have polish and will give you hope and confidence that there actually is a legitimate choice," Dragoon said.
Even with its latest troubles rolling out the next generation of Windows, Microsoft continues to dominate the computer OS market with an 85 percent to 90 percent share. Novell's Linux suite, while critically acclaimed, still lags behind RedHat Inc.'s versions of the "open source," or freely distributed, OS.
Matt Friedemann, vice president of engineering, and Guy Linardi, senior products manager, said Novell programmers and open-source community contributors had labored more than a year to produce a family of new Linux products for the PC desktop.
Testing of the new software also involved study groups made up of ordinary users who were asked to perform typical tasks, such as browsing the Internet, sending e-mail, creating a document or using a Web cam.
Engineers monitored the groups, regularly reviewing, tweaking and re-testing products before they were deemed ready for release.
"Geeks are nice, but there are a lot of other 'non-geek' people in the world, and we wanted to reach them," Friedemann said.
Novell still exists? How'd they survive all their screwups over the years?
Novell? Aren't they down to trying to sell some free software they bought from some guys in Europe? No wonder their earnings are atrocious.
I would easily recommend Microsoft, Apple, or Sun products over Novell.
they are not "in debt to their eyeballs."
They got a $500 million settlement from M$ about a year ago, and that took them to $1.2 billion in cash assets.
I am definitely sure about that lawsuit settlement number.
So it's on the same schedule as Windows 95 then.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Then they must have repaid the huge loan they took out last year. Good luck to them.
Three words: Installed customer base
"I would easily recommend Microsoft, Apple, or Sun products over Novell."
Novell can't market its way outta a paper bag.
Given that, I'd stack up eDir against ADir any day of the week. And, this stuff runs on various hardware platforms, not just on one, like the ones you mention. In fact, Novell's products (other than O/S) run in various operating systems, something products from your vendors can't say.
Good, I'm glad to hear it. I'm not sure there are enough applications out there to run on Linux (SUSE 10), but Novell put all of its eggs in one basket.
"Then they must have repaid the huge loan they took out last year. Good luck to them."
You have a citation for that "huge loan" statement? It would have to be public knowledge since Novell is a public company. It would be in their annual report.
"Having" almost every application I'll "ever need" is a whole lot different from "running" every application I'll ever need.
Ahhhh. Just like General Motors.
"I'm not sure there are enough applications out there to run on Linux (SUSE 10)"
Novell ported over all of its enterprise apps (Groupwise email, etc) to Linux, starting about 3 years ago. Novell runs its corporate office entirely on Linux servers and desktops.
Who owns that debt? (I want to short them first a.m.)
That's the truth. They sat on their laurels for so many years, milking Netware for all it was worth. And any new product/company they bought, they didn't market or seem to pay much attention to it (re: WordPerfect, Cambridge whatever it was, etc.) Novell is eternally changing their sales force, don't know why they can't hire a great marketing team. The odd thing is that the bad marketing has continued for so many years with different sets of management.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Like I said initially, rumor has it. I shouldn't have posted that rumor without concrete facts. My apologies.
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