Novell Adds
Linux
Novell
seemed to surprise even itself, enticing more than 6,000 developers,
analysts, partners, and sponsors to its 20th annual
Brainshare conference in Salt Lake City.
The story from the top is that while Novell wants to bask in
the Linux limelight, they want to make sure they aren’t suddenly
labeled a Linux company – they want to be more than that.
We
agree they are: we just don’t think their messaging has quite
gotten sorted out yet. Here’s
what they want to be sure you know about them, now that they’re
becoming important again:
(1)
They are a major Linux distribution.
SuSE was about a $35 million company last year, compared to
Red Hat’s $126 million in revenues, but now that SuSE’s part of
Novell, all that changes. Just
pumping SuSE through the Novell channel should at least double that
number. Then there’s
the opportunity to sell Novell products and services on top (who
knows hot to count that?)
(2)
But Novell is a much bigger company than SuSE – about $1
billion. A big chunk of
that is still in the declining NetWare market and while Novell is
hoping to move a lot of those NetWare users to Linux, they want to
assure them that they can stay, supported and enhanced, on the
NetWare platform, for as long as they like.
It was a strong message.
(3)
Another big chunk is in Novell’s systems management products –
directory and others. Novell
will have all of them on both the Linux and the NetWare platforms,
eventually uniting them under OneServer.
But Novell has to decide whether it’s an operating system
company (I don’t think so – that didn’t work out so well the
last time), a work group software company (hmmm) or an
infrastructure software and systems management company.
If it’s going to be the latter, it’s probably going to
have to create or acquire additional software to compete – or make
it clear what niche it plans to occupy.
One
thing is very clear. Novell
has the experience, the customer/developer relationships, and the
channel connections to provide a level of Linux training, support,
and certification that no one else has been able to offer so far.
That may be what we need to really get the Linux market –
especially the Linux desktop market – to the mainstream.
Think of it as a test. If
this doesn’t work, maybe that wasn’t the problem.
Novell
fields a solid set of products targeted at security, identity
management, management of network services, collaboration (messaging
and calendaring), and provisioning.
All are planned for enhancements.
Then it will be time to look at Item (3) above again, and
decide what the positioning is. Is Novell a niche player – and in which niche – or is it
going out against the bigger players in the market?
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