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Novell IT

Novell to Release 20% of Their Employees? 206

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the should-have-worked-for-the-oil-company dept.
sicariusdracus writes to tell us that Ron Hovsepian, the new president and COO of Novell may have his hands full in the near future. Ron has been tasked with getting the troubled business back on track which many have speculated could result in more than 20% of the 5,800 man workforce getting a pink slip (although Hovsepian suggests that may be an over exaggeration). Part of the restructuring will be announced with Novell's fourth-quarter financial results.
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Novell to Release 20% of Their Employees? More

Novell to Release 20% of Their Employees?

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  • Act I (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:04PM (#13936527)
    Smithers: Mr. Hovsepian there's some solicitors at your door to see you.
    Hovsepian: Release the employees.

    • Re:Act I (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ChrisGilliard ( 913445 )
      +1 for parent

      From the article: "The layoffs will be more about resource allocation,"

      Enough with this PC stuff. Why can't they just say, something like, "We don't have the budget to sustain 5800 salarys, so we're laying off X people."? There is something to be said for Candor from executives.

  • fly my prettys, fly (Score:3, Funny)

    by hector_uk ( 882132 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:05PM (#13936533)
    i just got a mental picture of evil novel monkeys with wings being released......

  • Stocks? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gr33nNight ( 679837 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:05PM (#13936538)
    So after the 4th quarter results are in, that would be a good time to buy Novell stocks? $7/share is pretty tempting...

    • Re:Stocks? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It sells at 53 times next years earnings. That is more expensive than google. I can't think of any correct way to say that novl is cheap.

    • Re:Stocks? (Score:4, Funny)

      by tonyr60 ( 32153 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:38PM (#13936785)
      SGI's are even cheaper....

    • Support _only_ KDE and SUSE (Score:4, Interesting)

      by billybob2 ( 755512 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:44PM (#13936830)
      Yes $7/share is pretty tempting, but Novel's stock will only go up if they start being profitable. Novel had it coming to them when they bought Ximian, a gnome vendor that made a hodge podge of different products that are now dead (remember RedCarpet?). Novel should stick to SUSE/KDE and re-orient all its developers towards improving _only one_ application for each particular need (ie. YAST for installation/maintenance, KDE for desktop, etc).

      Novel's premier Linux distribution, SUSE, is historically based on KDE yet the individual projects that they're supporting (Beagle, Evolution) are gnome apps. I think in the long run KDE will become the de-facto standard primarily because of the tight integration among its applications and excitement in its developer and user base about KDE 4. If you don't believe me, take a look at how many more posts there are in KDE-Look [kde-look.org] than in Gnome-Look [gnome-look.org]. In fact, there is KDE-Apps [kde-apps.org] for independent apps built with the KDE/QT framework, while there is no such place to aggregate gnome apps.

      In conclusion, Novel should get their gnome developers to work on KDE so that they have a tightly integrated system with no duplicated functionality.
      • Red Carpet still exists. It's only been rebranded [novell.com].
        • Rebranded //and// extended. ZLM7 [novell.com] is much improved over Red Carpet Enterprise 2 and the first releases of ZENworks Linux Management. I know you (maw) know this - just posting for the slashdot record. :)

      • Re:Support _only_ KDE and SUSE (Score:5, Informative)

        by Chapter80 ( 926879 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @08:18PM (#13937078)
        Novel's stock will only go up if they start being profitable.

        To be clear, Novell is profitable [yahoo.com].

        EPS (ttm)=0.92 means that their Earnings Per Share for the Trailing Twelve Months was 92 cents a share. On a $7.47 share price (when I looked at the link, above), that's about 12% Earnings return on the share price (or a PE Ratio of 8.08).

        That's really not a horrible return. Not great, but not bad, considering some tech companies LOSE money. It's only as high as it is because the stock price is beaten down so badly. Of course, you need to consider FUTURE earnings, not past, when buying a stock.

        I'm no stock guru, but I do have what most would consider a sizeable portfolio, and I am in Novell at just over $6 (full disclosure here) for a few grand. So, yes, if I could encourage buying without touting the stock, I would. But I can't; that might be illegal.

      • ... excitement in its developer and user base about KDE 4. If you don't believe me, take a look at how many more posts there are in KDE-Look than in Gnome-Look.

        This is just wrong. Yeah, the two sites you mention have similar names. But unless you can come up with a damn good reason of how they both are representative of the "excitement of its developer and user base" of KDE and Gnome, you're just astroturfing for mindshare.
      • I used to do KDE development (need to get back to it), and I have no desire to see only one desktop out there. Yeah, Sun (and some of the old *nix world) would like see a single desktop. But that comes from the fear of what happened in the *nix world. But the real problem was not that there were parallel projects, but that they did not cooperate. The real battle was dominately between HP and Sun. They both wanted to win. So they each offered up desktops that differed and did not use similar conf. files. Lik

      • Novel's premier Linux distribution, SUSE, is historically based on KDE yet the individual projects that they're supporting (Beagle, Evolution) are gnome apps. I think in the long run KDE will become the de-facto standard primarily because of the tight integration among its applications and excitement in its developer and user base about KDE 4. If you don't believe me, take a look at how many more posts there are in KDE-Look than in Gnome-Look. In fact, there is KDE-Apps for independent apps built with the K

        • I agree with you but I see some history here.

          SuSe is and has been a KDE desktop environment.

          Novell was not in the Linux business.

          Novell bought SuSE.

          Novell bought some other Linux companies

          Novell employed the .NOT errr .Net guy Miguel....

          Novell focused on GNOME, while SuSe still is KDE heavy. (yes I know GNOME support is good)

          My question is What the hell was Novell thinking? The previous poster is somewhat correct in that more people do run KDE. So if Novell is commited to SuSE and GNOME, then they probab
      • Red Carpet lives and breathes as ZENworks Linux Management. In fact //I// have posted a few times on Slashdot about that transition. The Red Carpet - now ZENworks Linux Management [novell.com] - engineering team are alive and well and working on the next release of the ZENworks Linux Management product line. [As an aside - I know Slashdot is renowned for the innacuracy of posts - but this one just seems steeped in Gnome/KDE politics... Gnome, KDE - I really don't care so long as it's not the Win32 Shell...]
      • The more serious issues of your post being already discussed by other people, I'll just point out one ridiculous claim:

        In fact, there is KDE-Apps for independent apps built with the KDE/QT framework, while there is no such place to aggregate gnome apps.

        Apart from the fact that the relevance of this is obscure to me, I have to wonder how you did your research... You could have typed "gnome-apps.org" and find a site with GNOME apps. Or you could have searched for "gnome apps" in Google, the 4th result has a q
      • I think in the long run KDE will become the de-facto standard primarily because of the tight integration among its applications and excitement in its developer and user base about KDE 4.

        That logic does not follow dude. I do hope KDE4 is awesome though and it's users enjoy it. I hope the next Gnome release is awesome too.

        take a look at how many more posts there are in KDE-Look than in Gnome-Look.

        My God man! The sub-project-forum-number-of-posts indicator! That's some solid data!

        Cheers
        Stor

    • Re:Stocks? (Score:2, Informative)

      by LnxAddct ( 679316 )
      Err actually, the stock has been downgraded by several investment firms. Its expected drop a bit further even with the restructure. This will be like the 7th restructuring Novell has done in a little over a decade, if this doesn't pan out I don't think anyone will want their stock.
      Regards,
      Steve
    • So, depending .... yes, now might be a good time to buy Novell stock.

      Not to mention that the big drop in employee salaries and such will kick up the profit/expense ratio (assuming flat profits).

      All of which just thrills the Street. The question is, can you get back out soon enough, at a profit before it comes down again?

  • Release? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It makes it sound like they're in prison!

  • released (Score:5, Funny)

    by specialkp ( 922254 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:06PM (#13936547) Homepage
    I sure hope they're released under the GPL... It's good to see companies like this releasing human resources though. I'm going to download some today! Anyone got a torrent?
    • > > more than 20% of the 5,800 man workforce
      >
      >Anyone got a torrent?

      In other news, 1160 ex-Novell employees said to be raising capital for hostile takeover of Krispy Kreme donut franchises, said to be interested in realigning business model with .torrent releases targeted directly at the Japanese pr0n market.

      Finally in business news, Fuller Brush Company stock is up 50% on the day. A spokesperson for Fuller Brush Company said that despite initial concerns about the Slashdotting of their

    • I know, "released"? What the hell? Is that the euphanism we're using now? I forget which edition of newspeak we are on.

      "Released" sounds pleasant. "What did you do today, honey?", "I got released from work!!", "Wonderful, let's celebrate!".

      Meanwhile, those of us in the real world use words like "fired", "laid-off", "redundant". I can see why their market research indicated a change was required. It's like rebranding "cancer" as "closure".

  • 600 people to be laid off (Score:5, Informative)

    by Marcus Meissner ( 6627 ) <marcus@jet.franken.de> on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:06PM (#13936548) Homepage
    Pretty old news, it will be around 10% or 600 jobs [yahoo.com]
    Ciao, Marcus
    • I guess 43 minutes is pretty old!

      by Marcus Meissner (6627) on Wednesday November 02, @06:06PM (#13936548)
      Pretty old news, it will be around 10% or 600 jobs

      From TFA:
      AP
      Novell to Cut Jobs in Restructuring Plan
      Wednesday November 2, 5:23 pm ET
      Novell to Eliminate 600 Jobs As Part of Restructuring Plan, Expects Fourth-Quarter Charge

  • release... oh good, finally released... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:07PM (#13936556)
    Wait a minute, are you saying we're FIRED?

    I have such a hard time with this Newspeak.

  • Mono (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tanaka ( 37812 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:08PM (#13936560) Homepage
    Lets just hope this has no effect on Mono [mono-project.com]. I'm amazed how far thay have come with the project. There are so meny sin-off projects now, it has to be taken seriously.

  • help me out here... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CDPatten ( 907182 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:10PM (#13936585) Homepage
    All joking aside, who uses them anymore? Is their business all legacy support?

    Do any of you guys use them? I guess I ask because I'm surprised they are still in business.

    I hanve't seen a novell system in many years, and never hear about copanies doing a big novell roll-out.

    • Re:help me out here... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by CoolCash ( 528004 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:22PM (#13936679) Homepage
      Our company does, we have 23 severs running Netware and GroupWise, in our company. They are great file and print servers with great directory services. We only have three employees managing all the servers and all helpdesk calls for 350 people.
      • Our company does, we have 23 severs running Netware and GroupWise, in our company. They are great file and print servers with great directory services. We only have three employees managing all the servers and all helpdesk calls for 350 people.

        Yeah, ok that sounds cool, but what about TCO?

        That's Trepidation and Craven Obeisance.

    • Re:help me out here... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You don't see them because they are the servers in the the room that just keep working. :-)

      Honestly, we have quite a few Netware servers for file/print. They just run and run great.

      We are migrating away from them over time, but only because of support and marketshare. Too bad really.

      Not quite Banyan Vines, but oh well.

      It will be interesting to see if Netware services on top of Linux (OES) will allow Novell to keep their base happy. We're playing with it now.

      We had some of our Netware 4 Servers run for ov

    • Re:help me out here... (Score:5, Informative)

      by deanoaz ( 843940 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:27PM (#13936716)
      They are still big among enterprises that value reliability and ease of use for large directories. I work in local goverment and it is our central store of identity and authentication for 12,000 users, as well as distributing applications and hosting files. Netware 6.5 provides great resources for Identity Management. Many goverment and educational sites use Netware, maybe because they typically don't have a lot of money for staff and need something that isn't labor intensive or prone to failure.

      We have never had server downtime because of a virus or worm.

      Novell's marketing seems to be the only weakness, the products are great.

      Their hope of the future is migrating all their existing features to run over Linux.
      • Novell's marketing seems to be the only weakness, the products are great.

        As a consultant dealing with several NetWare LANs, I've gotta ask what you're smoking, and why aren't you sharing?

        Do me a favor, tell me the checkboxes I can click to install NW6.5 to get a fully running, usable server installed without twiddling any text files. File sharing is easy enough, but I want iPrint, iFolder, NetStorage, and Virtual Office (and no, installing on SYS: doesn't make it usable). I'd even settle for a nice GUI

    • We do. I don't remember what our employee count is, exactly, but it's quite a bit over 15,000. As others have said, great for file, print, email, and directory services. Novell's eDirectory (formerly NDS) is the most mature, stable, and powerful directory service package out there. Their clustering and SAN solutions are also quite excellent. Novell's Linux products aren't ready for prime time, yet, but they're coming along. By the time Netware 7 is out (_all_ Suse under the hood), the Novell Linux Des

    • NetWare 6.5 here, GroupWise 7, ZENworks 6.0. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:54PM (#13936906)
      Novell's old products are great. But their sales force sucks beyond belief. They are one of the few companies where you have to defeat their sales force to get them to sell you anything.

      And you had better know exactly what you want because they're not going to offer any advice.

      The only time you'll see/hear a Novell rep is when a tech support company goes cruising for clients. The Novell reps love to be driven around to see customers that they wouldn't ever call on their own.

      I could double Novell's sales with nothing more than a two line phone and an email account. Seriously. Microsoft takes executives from potential clients to expensive dinners. Novell won't even waste a phone call on an existing customer. They won't even let you know when new products come out that could fit with the stuff they have on record that they sold you.

      • Re:NetWare 6.5 here, GroupWise 7, ZENworks 6.0. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Well put. I'd mod this up Informative rather than Interesting because I've seen the same thing. The products are decent enough, but getting our Novell rep to actually give us information or a demo of their software is like pulling teeth. They can't even accurately describe to you what their software is supposed to do. It's a research excercise to figure out if their solution fits your problem.

        We've got a Novell moron that shows up at our (large) university once in a while to present to all the techni

    • Re:help me out here... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Searaven ( 928019 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @08:06PM (#13937003)
      I think you'd be surprised who uses Netware and it's services. I work for IDC, International Data Corporation. We use Netware and Suse in most of the 47 countries we have offices in. I used to work in the corporate headquarters in the US where we have Netware 5.x and 6.x file/print/services servers in all the offices. They mostly run for over a year or more between reboots. Those are usually for service packs and rarely for abends. Netware/eDirectory is very low on the scale of adminstrative burden and it allows us to manage the network and desktops for 750+ users in 7 offices across the States with only 2 full time desktop support staff and 2 admins who also take care of many other systems. Most of our sites with 10 to 50 people don't have a local admin and run quite happily. Novell's ZenWorks is phenomenal for remote application delivery, imaging, remote control and inventory for the desktop. I moved to Australia in May to bring IDC AP over to Novell services, running on the Linux kernel with OES. It's a slow process getting the entire region ready for the change. So far I have our New Zealand office migrated and the Sydney office is very soon to follow and some of our services in Australia are already on Netware. Since I got here I've had to manage two Windows domains and though I started with NT domains many years ago I feel like I've got an arm tied behind my back administering the Windows networks, services and users. Things that are so painless with Netware are either difficult or not possible with NT domains. I've been so spoiled with Netware I can't wait to be rid of the domains! Active Directory is better than NT, but from what I've seen (it's in a few of our offices over here), it's not nearly as fully featured as the far more mature Novell eDirectory product. Our current Netware sites will gradually migrates to Open Enterprise Server runnin on the SLES Linux kernel and many of our core services are running on Linux. If it wasn't for vendors who only roll out applications only for Windows machines - Patchlink, ePo, etc, we wouldn't have any Windows servers. I agree with an earlier post that Novell's marketing efforts have always been their downfall. It's too bad really, because it is such a superior product to choice of the huddled masses.
    • Do any of you guys use them? I guess I ask because I'm surprised they are still in business.

      Hells yes. I have about 40 Netware 6.5 [novell.com] servers, 2500 users in eDirectory [novell.com], and about the same number of workstations managed by Zenworks Desktop Management. [novell.com]

    • Identity management (Score:4, Interesting)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @08:32PM (#13937179) Homepage
      Jack Messman says Novell now has two primary businesses: identity management and open source. That's the business Novell wants to go after, anyway. I think it has a decent amount of what you call legacy-support business as well, but it's constantly shrinking.

      Identity management is a pretty hot area right now and a lot of companies want a piece of it, including the big guys like IBM and Sun. Novell remains a leader, however, largely because it has a superior directory product.

      I wrote an article profiling Novell [infoworld.com] and it's current business prospects last year. It still pretty much holds. Try to look past the fact that it quotes Laura DiDio -- before joining the ranks of the "notorious foes of Linux," she covered Novell for years and years.

      The latest news is that Novell's shareholders have been pressuring it to focus more and more on Linux and open source. I'm not sure that's necessarily the best move, because I don't think Suse Linux is generating all that much revenue so far. The open source angle seems to be perceived as the "sexiest" way to go forward, however, with the hope of reviving the Novell brand.
    • My university uses Novel for the non-engineering and non-compsci portion of the student body user accounts. Not sure why, except htat perhaps it is easier/cheaper to use Novel with them, since they don't need access to the suite of tools that the engr/csci people do (Pro-E, Matlab, Mathcad, all that kinda jazz)
  • Will Ron Hovsepian be different than many other high powered COO's in the long run? What if he fails to resurect Novell, he will be paid either handsomely as a saviour or bid adieu with a seperation package. Either way he will be far better than the pink slip recipients. It's never about the little guy when stockholders are involved. Even when those laid off deserved to be.
    • Either way he will be far better than the pink slip recipients.

      I dunno about that... Not being forced to use Groupwise anymore may put you in the "far better off" category.

      (Please not in the face! I do tech support for Groupwise!)

      But seriously...

      What if he fails to resurect Novell, he will be paid either handsomely as a saviour or bid adieu with a seperation package. Either way he will be far better than the pink slip recipients.

      I think Scott Adams (Dilbert Author) had pretty good words about layoffs... (I'

  • Released... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:12PM (#13936604) Homepage
    Lets just say they've been "open sourced". 1160 people liberated, people want to be free.

    But not me, I'm expensive.

  • Yesterday... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:14PM (#13936624) Journal
    In the Boston Globe yesterday: "Novell trips over its Linux strategy [boston.com]".

    I'd had a feeling that that story wasn't going to get posted here...

    • Why? Are you implying that a Linux-based article that has a potential negative spin to it will never see the light of day on Slashdot?

      Cripes, man! Where were you (a 4 digit UID man, at that) during the endless SCO discussions?

      I'm sure if you searh through everyones submission box it was probably one of the thousands of perfectly good articles that got passed over.

      All is not lost, however. You got it in, didn't you?

    • Re:Yesterday... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Darth ( 29071 )
      I dont see why this story wouldn't get posted.

      Everyone, including the financial backers, approve of the purchase of SuSE and agree with the strategy Novell is trying to implement. The problem is that they dont have faith in the executive management team to implement the plan successfully. They arent looking to scrap the company's migration to linux. They're looking at whether they should get a new management team to finish implementing the plan, or give the current management more time.

      The article even incl

    • that article is bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)

      by idlake ( 850372 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @08:05PM (#13936988)
      Novell didn't "trip over its Linux strategy". Novell's primary product, Netware, was dead when Microsoft finally incorporated equivalent functionality into Windows. That's what the company "tripped over". Novell was essentially dead before they started doing anything with Linux. I find it amazing that they have managed to stay so relevant and important, and their acquisitions of SuSE and their support of Mono look like excellent ideas.

      There is no way that their move into Linux was ever going to keep them going at their past levels. That's neither surprising, nor is it Linux's fault. You can make a decent business out of FOSS, but it's not going to be a cash cow like Windows or the old Novell.

      I frankly can't judge whether Novell is executing right with SuSE. But the quality of SuSE as a distribution has been consistently high, and they have a good shot at selling to businesses, in particular in the European markets. I hope they'll make it, alongside RedHat and a completely free Debian; we need more and smaller companies, not a few behemoths. And, to me, the Linux distributions strike a good balance between compatibility and diversity.
      • There is no way that their move into Linux was ever going to keep them going at their past levels. That's neither surprising, nor is it Linux's fault. You can make a decent business out of FOSS, but it's not going to be a cash cow like Windows or the old Novell.

        I'd say that's a pretty fair assessment of Novell's situation.

    • I'm no Linux apologist, but I don't think TFA makes any point about Linux. The only cited failure is a client moving from Novell to Red Hat. Now if said client moved to M$...
    • Why? Did you expect that we'd not want to admit that you can't make money by selling Free Software? You can't. It's not a profit center. If you want to understand how its economics work. Look here [perens.com].

      Bruce

      • Did you expect that we'd not want to admit that you can't make money by selling Free Software? You can't.

        Excuse me ... WHAT?!?!?

        Putting aside the faux surprise that anyone might think such a thing -- don't you think this might have been mentioned earlier? Like, back in, say, 1998?!?

        • Well, aroung 1998 Eric wrote a big list of business methods for Open Source in the Cathedral and the Bazaar. History has proven most of them to be not all that effective. However, Open Source gets paid for and will continue to be paid for. How? Read the paper I linked to.

          Bruce

      • Huh, look at redhat. Don't say they just provide service contracts because that is just full of BS. The actually sell contracts on what they write (the old cygnus way, though from what I hear that business is going down but not because of open source vs closed source but from the fact new processors ISAs are being made as fast as they were once). For the processors, look at what is happening to the market, it is going to be a battle between only three processors, ARM, x86/x86_64, and PPC. This market is
  • into the wild?
  • Is that the opposite of "misunderestimation", as coined by a certain US President?

  • So It Is True! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Comatose51 ( 687974 ) on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @07:24PM (#13936695) Homepage
    20% of the 5,800 man workforce getting a pink slip

    So it is true! There really are no women in IT!

    I kid, I kid.

  • Release them? As part of a coordinated tag and release programme I assume. We'll soon be seeing poor tagged IT professionals with broken wings and tracking bands for anklets arriving in flocks all round the country, perhaps stopping at a workplace near you. A pity.
  • First they "lose" their employees (what, you can't find them?). Then they "let them go" (as if they wanted to). Now they "release" them (from what, a prison cell?). The euphemisms just keep getting better!
  • Hey! They're in violation of equal opportunity hiring laws if they have no women on staff.

    Oh, wait. They're in Utah. All the women must be at home in order to have that polygamy thing work...
  • One has got to believe that Novell will not remain an independent company for long. How long before CA, the grim reaper of IT, will acquire them, fire the remaining 80% and suck the legacy customers dry for maintenance revenue at inflated rates until they finally are fed to Microsoft? You heard it here first. Gartner analysts? - here's a new idea for you to pitch now that CA is your best buddy... (read the Ilumin acquisition press releases...) CA has always wanted an operating system anyway.... Cheers.

  • Typical classical management (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Orion Blastar ( 457579 ) <orionblastar AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday November 02, 2005 @08:58PM (#13937369) Homepage Journal
    is to get rid of employees when things are not profitable, rather than try and fix the problems causing expenses to be so high. Something like job cost accounting could be used to find the products and services that cost more to support than the revenue they bring in. Then either remove the products and services that are not profitable, or use quality control to improve them so there does not need a lot of expenses in supporting them anymore.

    An example of this was when Apple was bleeding billions of dollars. They got rid of unprofitable products like the Newton, scanners, printers, Pippin, etc, and improved the Macintosh quality and features, until the company started to show a profit again. Of course they also downsized, but if they did things correctly they would not have to downsize. Keep in mind that they found new markets to be profitable in like music and video files, and the iPod.

    There is some risk involved in doing that, but anything in business has a certain degree of risk.

    Novell ought to see if Netware is costing more to support than the revenue it brings in. Sadly there are still organizations using Netware 3.X on MS-DOS and older Windows based workstations. If Novell was smart, they'd find a product or service to offer these organizations, or allow them to upgrade the Netware 3.X servers to a version of SuSE Linux with the Netware server application designed for the older servers, and then use SAMBA to connect to Windows clients as well. Perhaps Novell could make a deal with a PC maker to bundle SuSE Linux on their workstations and servers. Maybe make a SuSE Linux based rackmount server for web, email, IM, and other functions with some PC maker.

    Anyway Novell ought to see what new markets they can get into, perhaps partner up with IBM/Lotus, Oracle, Sun, or even contribute to the Mozilla Foundation.
    • Actually Novell was partnering with Mozilla, working on XForms. However, it seems that with the cutbacks, that's no longer the case. [beaufour.dk] (I might have misunderstood something, but that's what the blog entry seems to say.)
  • How bad does your work environment have to suck to start describing layoffs in prison terms?
  • Is the CEO that spends their time coming up with new ways to say 'kicked out' going to be 'moving on' or 'exploring different career options'?
  • you may want to watch where you're pointing that gun...after all, you only have one foot left now
  • which many have speculated could result in more than 20% of the 5,800 man workforce getting a pink slip

    So only men are getting the "pink slip"? This is either sexist or homophobic. I can't figure which.

  • "Hello, welcome to Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom!" ...

    "Jim Fowler will be attaching these harmless radio collars to the employees before they are released. This will allow us to track them as they find new homes in the wild. Hopefully this information can be used by scientists to ensure a healthy and growing employee population."

    "If your family is healthy and growing, you should consider purchasing insurance from Mutual of Omaha to help with all of life's little mishaps."
  • Is that a bit like how foetuses are prematurely 'released' from the womb?
  • Because release makes it sound like they are imprisoned, trapped, and want to be freed from their current working environment/capacity - like they are doing them a favor.

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"What man has done, man can aspire to do." -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight

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