“It’s going to get a lot worse for Novell before it gets better.
The company’s second-quarter profit warning may only be the
beginning of its problems.”
“Analysts responded with stunned silence – never a good omen
on a conference call. Sales will be in the $300 million range,
down from the first quarter and a year ago.”
“Despite a passing reference to sales problems related to
Linux and Windows 2000, Novell shoulders most of the blame for its
problems, industry onlookers say Novell management says the
company had weak sales because of “the introduction of Windows 2000
and growing market interest in the Linux operating system [OS].”
But don’t put much stock in that statement – it’s not like Corel,
Microsoft and RedHat are ganging up on Novell. Raney, who
mispronounced Linux on the analyst conference call, wasn’t
convincing.”