Leader: Novell story tells blunt truths of networking
There is a rather fat charming gentleman who is currently striding across the US publicising his book. The book is an eloquent anti-corporate wail against the trend of downsizing and I think he will shortly be doorstepping Novell CEO Eric Schmidt. Novell has shaken Wall Street and turned a projected net profit of $0.03 per share into a net loss of $0.04 per share.
Schmidt has stated that Novell will become a ?more streamlined, tightly managed and responsive organisation?. Why has it taken so long for Novell to realise the realities of the marketplace? And if the company is still holding over supernumerary staff from its acquisitions of Unix Systems Laboratories and Wordperfect, what has it been doing at the very top of the company? It points to a board which has only recently been rapped over the knuckles by Schmidt and told to cut costs dramatically. And I bet that the senior manager who told him the numbers of staff they had sitting about duplicating effort was among the first 30 per cent of ?managers? who lost their jobs.
Is it the case that the channels were stuffed, as Novell says, or was it the case that Windows NT is replacing Netware at such a rate in the corporate market that Novell?s pips are squeaking even more?
Recent skills surveys show NT expertise outstripping Netware considerably and demand for Novell systems administration appears to have gone flat. Demand for staff equals demand for product and Novell is obviously suffering. Hopefully, a new Novell will regain its strength and remain a leading player in the struggle to prevent Microsoft dominating the whole market.
On page 8 of this issue, a Novell survey gives us some light relief with the story that senior managers in companies are relentlessly bullying staff by email. I sense the whiff of political correctness. Email messages can be blunt by their very nature and open to more interpretation than a face-to-face chat. But those discussions invariably involve a phone call to your boss?s assistant who arranges a meeting which you walk to and walk back from (and even more time if you occupy a multi-building site), involving far more time than an email exchange.
This smacks to me of politically sensitive shrinking violets who would accuse a boss of bullying when they were told they were under-performing. And I do not believe that email wastage costs UK business #10 billion a year. How can you spend an hour a day wasting time on email? Oh well ? time to pop out for a quick fag.