Stone gives Novell a marketing boost

Novell is attempting to beef up its marketing shortcomings after Object Management Group (OMG) founder Chris Stone became the latest executive to join the US networking company.

Stone, OMG chairman and CEO, will join Novell as senior vice president of strategy and corporate development on 2 September. His appointment follows hot on the heels of that of IBM veteran John Slitz, who was recently confirmed as vice president of corporate marketing (PC Dealer, 13 August).

The fact that Slitz is a former colleague of Stone?s is no coincidence, according to Stone, as this will further help to strengthen the team.

The formation of the ?turnaround? team follows comments from Eric Schmidt, Novell chairman and CEO, that most customers praise the firm?s technical prowess but are wary of its shortcomings in the marketing area.

Stone said: ?Novell has some great products. It just needs some direction.?

At Novell, Stone will be responsible for forming strategic partnerships and developer relations. His experience at OMG will help him reshape Novell?s software architecture, which will include distributed object technology based on OMG specifications as the networking giant attempts to forge links into the internet market.

Before setting up OMG, Stone worked at Data General where as group manager and director of software products he formulated strategy for integrated office products.

Slitz was previously VP of object technology/application development marketing at IBM. He boasts 25 years of IT marketing experience, with 14 of those at IBM.

The two appointments come as Novell makes the transition to becoming an intranet/internet systems developer.