Novell Layoffs Coming This Month?

Roblimo writes "Multiple sources close to and inside Novell have told us the company expects to lay off between 10% and 15% of all employees by the end of October. '...shareholders have suggested that Novell divest itself of its consulting group and GroupWise division, while at the same time instituting personnel cuts across the board to bring expenses more in line with revenues,' writes business columnist Lauren Rudd at NewsForge, who also notes that '[Novell's] NetWare revenue stream continues to deteriorate, declining by $36 million in fiscal 2004, excluding the impact of favorable foreign exchange rates.'" NewsForge is part of the same family of companies as Slashdot.

Re:I don't doubt NetWare revenue continues to slip

[bonius_rex]

...but then the Wed-based manager (forget the name)...

iManager [novell.com]

Total failure of Jack Messman's strategy

[Scott7477]

When Cambridge Technology Partners merged with Novell, one of the major selling points was that combining consulting services with Novell's products would produce growth. If Novell's investors have decided to split off the consulting business, this is an admission that Novell's entire strategy for however long it's been since the CTP purchase has been a failure.

I don't know what proportion of Novell's employees are in the Linux/OSS area, but in my opinion these are the only ones to keep. The rest of the business has been in shrinkage mode for many years. I used to work at a large manufacturing company near Novell's operations in Utah, and that company switched from Netware to Microsoft server software about 10 years ago. At the time, I thought that if Novell couldn't keep customers in its own backyard, it was probably doomed. It is amazing how long it takes to kill off an enterprise.

Ironically, Novell finished building about a 12 story office tower in Provo around the time that the Cambridge Technology Partners merger went through. That building is probably worth as much as the IP rights to Netware now.

Re:Why is this "Your Rights Online"?

[ahillen]

Or in an EU country like France or Germany, where workers get to enjoy lifetime employment (if they're able to get a job; given their high rate of unemployment, that's no sure thing) in exchange for a stagnant economy and a crushing tax burden.

Lifetime employment in German companies? I hope, this was ment to be another cliche, but this was is not apparent from your wording. It probably is more difficult to lay off workers in Germany (and companies say it is too difficult), but it is of course possible and happens frequently. You probably got confused by the fact that certain jobs offered by the state are indeed life time positions. But no company will grant you something like this.

Re:Long time coming

[DiamondGeezer]

WTF are you talking about?

Netware 4.0, 4.01 and 4.02 were POS horrible things with terrible stability and NDS was as steady as Jell-o

Netware 4 was one of the main reasons people didn't upgrade from the rock-solid Netware 3.11, giving MS plenty of time to create a nice upgrade path to NT 3.51 complete with license-busting MS Netware gateways.

Only when Netware 4.1 came along did it start to get good. By then, fewer people cared, having been scarred by the experiences with the previous versions.

I've been a CNE for 12 years. But not for very much longer.

Re:Long time coming

[Wyatt Earp]

Sorry, been up for about 30 hours now.

4.11.

Novell's Long Term Status? Good

[eGuy]

Nonsense. The long term status for Novell is great. They are not in the red nor have they been for some time. Yes, NetWare could be in the toilet, but they have known that for quite some time now - Duh, that is why they went to Linux. That is one reason they are relevant for the long term.

It is the short term that the investors are concerned about. Novell's total revenue has remained steady but not growing as everyone thought it should and the investors are getting ansy.

Common everyone, keep it in perspective. Yes it is sad that they have to layoff people and they probably won't be able to contribute as much to open source as they have recently. This does not mean Novell is dead or that others will be "eating their lunch", or that their commitment to OSS has changed. They still make more money than they spend. They still have a sizable chunck of change in the bank that is not diminishing. That bank account is the primary reason their long term status is just fine.

Re:Why is this "Your Rights Online"?

[ahillen]

I work for a German company. The differences between me and my coworkers in Germany are striking. I don't get the vacations they do and I'm always the first to get laid off. They've had US employees for fifty years, but the "20 Year Employee" list consists solely of German names.

I don't doubt that. But still your German coworkers don't have a garanteed live time employment, which the original poster seemed to claim.

The German society values social security very high. That is why Germany has a very extensive social network and e.g. protects the workers from being fired very easily. Until not too long ago, it was deemed perfectly normal to start working at a company when you are young and stay with this company until you retire. But there never was a guarantee, and of course there were always companies laying off people. Germany was doing very well with this approach until the 80s, but in the last years one could also see the downside, namely that the system is probably too inflexible to adjust to growing international competition due to the globalised world. The fact that we have a bunch of countries with low labour costs right on our door step (Eastern Europe) also doesn't help. So, the society is changing, although somewhat reluctantly.