Microsoft-Novell, Once Hot and Heavy, Cooling Down

“Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian has stepped up and, rather than point
fingers at Microsoft for that performance, put the blame on his
company and its inability to strengthen its reseller channel. In a
conference call with financial analysts last month, he said “. . .
we don’t have the partner ecosystem to the level of performance
that we needed it to be.” Novell, not Microsoft, is responsible for
goosing its own market, Hovsepian said.”

Slashdotters, as usual, chime in with pithy and insightful
comments:

“Novell was warned (since the beginning of its relationship
with Microsoft) that Microsoft ‘partners’ consistently get stabbed
in the back. It took Novell a couple of years to take the
toll.”

“Really, Novell doesn’t do marketing. They had the most
reliable server OS for connecting windows boxes, and Microsoft came
and ate their lunch with an inferior (and more expensive) product.
Did someone really expect that all of a sudden, Novell would
discover the secret to marketing and manage to sell something?”

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