RSSNovell Ousts CEO, CFO in Shakeup
By Nate Mook | Published June 22, 2006, 4:07 PM
Enterprise Linux firm Novell announced on Thursday that its board of directors had named company president Ronald Hovsepian to replace CEO Jack Messman, while simultaneously ousting CFO Joseph Tibbetts. The shakeup comes as Novell struggles to succeed as an open source company.
Messman, who has been a director since Novell's founding, will remain on the company's board until the end of October, and Novell's current vice president of finance and corporate controller Dana Russell will become interim CFO while the company finds a replacement for Tibbetts.
The changes were not due to any questionable actions or financial improprieties, Novell officials said.
"The Board concluded that a management change would be the best way to accelerate the execution of our growth strategy and build value for shareholders," said Thomas Plaskett, a Novell director now appointed non-executive chairman of the board, in a statement.
"Ron is the ideal choice to lead the company as we continue with our transition to Linux-based products and identity and resource management and leverage our unique support of mixed source environments. He is a talented and proven executive with deep knowledge and expertise in the infrastructure software business and the enterprise market."
Before joining Novell in June 2003 as its North American president, Hovsepian worked for 17 years at IBM. Plaskett said Hovsepian has a close relationship with Novell's customers and understands the company's potential for growth.
"Going forward, we will maintain a sharp focus on meeting customer demand and delivering value through Linux-based, enterprise-wide solutions and identity and resource management products. We have innovative technology, a strong roster of customers and business partners and an extremely talented group of employees," remarked Hovsepian.
I have been aquainted with Novell's products since 1985 and have never been disappointed by them. Quite the contrary. The keyword which springs to mind is "reliable." Netware and Advanced Netware were more reliable than DOS for instance and less accessible to virus threats (I never encountered a single one all the time I worked with these products.)
Taking the plunge into open source is a challenge but a rewarding one. The ammount of feedback and helpful modifications to source code will help to speed up future versions as well as creating a major contribution to goodwill within the programming community and will be interesting to follow.
The number of companies who have survived the past 20 years can be counted on your fingers. Novell is one of them and if they forsee a future in open source then there probably will be one.
I have downloaded SUSE Linux 10.0 from Novell but haven't yet installed it. I plan on building a new server up from scratch based on dual channel technology so it should prove interesting.
Since I am now retired I don't have the purchasing power that I had when I was working so this project will take a while.
If one might be permitted to sneak in a quick little question to Novell it would be this: How about a Linux based version of COMPSURF.EXE?
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|Taking the plunge into open source was the last desperate gasp of a company grasping at straws while sharks pull it under. Novell has no market share, no credibility in the marketplace and no hope for the future. It tried to do the trendy thing and ride the s***tails of open source to a new lease on life. It has failed.
Novell was relevant once. I started my career with them. When Windows became network aware after MS "discovered" the networking market, i said "They're done". Their ridiculous pricing structure was a called shot to the head - their own.
I have no doubt that open source will continue to be a presence. However, I have little doubt that Novell will not be there to share in it.
Last night I mentioned them in passing to an engineer friend of mine. His reponse:
"They're still around? Why??"
That pretty much sums it all up.
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|MS won't crumble - they'll become more aggressive and less visionary which IMO is a bad thing.
Novell on the other hand has been dead for ten years - the dinosaur brain just refuses to admit what the mody already knows.
This is an irrelevant event inside an irrelevant shell of a company. The best that can be said about this is:
"Who cares... "
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|Novell's Suse linux is definately one of the best linux distributions out there. So they're not entirely done yet. They have some good products they just have to work on promoting them.
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|Yes, but Novell did not listen to Suse customers but gave gnome-fanatics like Nat Friedman a say. A severe mistake. The last suse release was delayed because of these guys. Now they want to convert suse customers to gnome. Nuremberg feels pissed.
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|Perhaps it was delayed because the product needed more work.
What evidence do you have to point at "these guys"?
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|MS won't crumble - they'll become more aggressive and less visionary which IMO is a bad thing.
Left field, there, buddy. Got nothing to do with the topic.
The rest... I cannot help but agree with.
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|The comment from left field was in response to another already existing comment; blame him, not me. :)
The rest I've already lived.
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|Huh...
Replys usually go under the the comment you were replying to. Must have been a glitch in the system. ;)
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|OK, so Bill Gates leaves on his own accord, and Microsoft is "subject" to crumbling, yet Novell FIRES their CFO/CEO and this has zero impact, is that what this is about?
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|Nah. you're the only one who brought Bill Gates into this. Has nothing to do with him, actually.
*grin*
Around Microsoft does not the world turn.
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|Totally off-topic :-)
"Around Microsoft does not the world turn."
I always enjoy those Yoda-type phrases.
You'd think that for living over 600yrs and many of them amongst english-speaking human beings, he would have learned to speak the english language in a normal way ;)
Vla
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|"The Board concluded that a management change would be the best way to accelerate the execution of our growth strategy and build value for shareholders"
Yeah, right. Ousting two top-guns sounds more like you are trying to change the existing strategy to me. The whole idea of finding ways to sue the %$# outta competitors didn't work, so let's do something that will. First the management has to go--but we will decide a plan AFTER that.
If the above scenario I described is the case, goodbye Novell--although I'm sure they do have at least some clue as to what direction they will go :)
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|Who has Novell sued?
They sold DR-DOS to Caldera which sued Microsoft in the 90s because Microsoft added a false message to Windows stating that Windows was not compatible with DR-DOS, MSFT asked for that.
http://www.businessweek.com/1996/32/b348762.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/600488.stm
Novell sued them because Microsoft distributed material implying that Novell was going out of business, which they asked for too.
http://www.findarticles....9/is_200110/ai_n8960852
Novell sued them for withholding "critical technical information" about Windows from Novell which everyone knows Microsoft does to their competition.
http://news.com.com/Nove...100-1012_3-5450285.html
Hmm, I'm not so sure Novell is the bad guy in all these suits, especially when you look at how many governments sued or are suing them.
;-)
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|You read one line I posted, and completely disregarded the rest of my post. Whether or not Novell sued anyone isn't the point--the point was that Novell ousted the head guys because the lower ones DISAGREE about the direction that Novell was going.
Whatever though
:-)
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|""The Board concluded that a management change would be the best way to accelerate the execution of our growth strategy and build value for shareholders"
I wouldn't call that disagreeing with the direction, perhaps the persons they ousted disagreed. ;-)
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