Change at the Top
Del.icio.usIt’s been a very busy day, but I just wanted to take time out to let you know that I am very excited about Ron Hovsepian’s new role as Novell’s new Chief Executive Officer. I’ve known Ron for years – we worked together at IBM – and I can tell you, every time he takes the reins of anything, great things happen. He’s already done amazing things here – he was key to developing our operating strategy, streamlining our operations and most importantly restoring the customer focus that is required to compete and win in the market place. This new role will give him an even broader platform from which to accelerate our execution.
As exciting as this news is, Ron would be the first to tell you he can’t do it alone. The good news is, he won’t have to. Our 5,000 employees and 5,000 partners are focused on winning and delivering value in the marketplace. As always, the customer will be the final arbiter. We don’t intend to disappoint.
I believe you’ll see a transparency and a focus on winning that is rare among technology companies. It starts at the top but I can assure you it’s a passion and commitment that we all share. You’ll see a confident Novell that is proud of its heritage, passionate about the present and optimistic for the future.
Look forward to some aggressive, exciting action from Ron and the rest of the Novell Team.
John
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
[...] I’ll point you all to Novell’s press release – and to John Dragoon’s CMO blog. [...]
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Novell Team
Good luck with the new structure. I hope it proves pivatal to a new growth based future.
Darren
June 26th, 2006 at 9:09 am
And when Novell abandons GroupWise and ZenWorks in pursuit of “greater shareholder value,” I’ll be left high and dry. Thanks guys.
I predict products abandoned, promises broken, and service declining as Novell pursues their new mission to “add value for shareholders.” In my experience when a company makes shareholder value top priority, it ALWAYS leads to a decline in customer service.
Prove me wrong, and I’ll be happy.
Novell’s technical support has always been great. I’m not looking forward to seeing the inevitable decline in this quality which will follow the layoffs, overseas outsourcing, and streamlining that inevitably result from efforts to “build value for shareholders.”
June 27th, 2006 at 10:26 am
It’s one thing to lose yet another CEO at Novell. When the CFO also is canned, there’s an indication that something is more seriously wrong at Novell then is being admitted.
Why Hovespian was promoted to CEO is also a surprise. “If you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’ll continue to get the same result.” Promoting from within is not the best move, IMO. Of course, the new CMO isn’t exactly blazing Novell a path towards profitability, either.
June 27th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Lisa, I gotta dispute one of your comments.
“Promoting from within is not the best move, IMO.”
I wouldn’t exactly call it that. Hovespian’s no entrenched long-time employee. He’s only been there a couple of years, and he’s clearly been being groomed for this role since 2005.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/22/novell_sacks_messman/
“the new CMO isn’t exactly blazing Novell a path towards profitability, either.”
All I can say to this is meeeooow!
June 27th, 2006 at 11:49 am
I am vey pleased to note that I received a personal response from John Dragoon after my initial posting, in which he disagreed with my assessment, and suggested that I was misinformed.
I really hope he’s right, but I want to make clear some of the reasons for my concerns. I’m not just talking off the top of my head, I’m responding to public statements by major Novell investors that they want these “non-core businesses” to be sold off.
http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-5854831.html?tag=tb
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1860155,00.asp
And these same investors’ obvious pleasure at the rise of Hovespian leads me to think they’re going to start getting their way.
Of course, we’re talking about stock investment analysts, who generally rank in my estimation somewhere between used-car salesmen and politicians as far as trustworthiness is concerned, but the fact is, people listen to these idiots.
June 30th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Why am I surprised? Because Hovespian doesn’t produce very well.
From Dave Kearns’ latest newsletter:
Today’s focus: Novell: What now?
By Dave Kearns
Today we’re going to take a look at Novell’s new CEO and see if we can discern how the recent management changes will affect the company’s products and customers.
Ron Hovsepian steps in as CEO after only a few short years – but a very rapid rise – in the Waltham, Mass., headquarters of the erstwhile Utah networking company. It was just three years ago, in June 2003, that Hovsepian joined the company. That was three years after leaving IBM where he’d been employed in a variety of positions over 17 years.
In fact, Hovsepian gives the impression that he’s always on the lookout for his next position, as CEO is his fourth office in three years at Novell. He started as “president of North America,” (certainly an unfortunate sounding title) then was elevated in May 2005, to “executive vice president and president, global field operations,” which in most companies
with normal titles for officers would have been called vice president of sales. After six months in that position, he was named COO last fall .
His track record with Novell, though, is hardly covered in glory. As I said in a newsletter
when he was named COO last fall, during his term as president of North America, he presided over a rapid decline in sales for the region (see Novell’s fiscal year 2003 revenue numbers, which show a decline of almost 17% in new license revenue). As a reward, he was promoted to the chief sales position in charge of worldwide sales. But while in that position, Novell’s sales was disappointing at best (see Novell’s 2005 third quarter results, which show a year-over-year decline of almost 20% in new license revenue). So when he was named COO, it was puzzling that he was not only left in charge of all sales but also given day-to-day responsibility for product development and marketing!
Hovsepian has no record of involvement with Networking, NetWare, eDirectory, GroupWise, ZENworks, SuSE (or any form of Linux) or open source during his 17 years at IBM. Where he stands on Linux and open source is unknown. But it may be significant that SuSE
Linux founder Hubert Mantel resigned from Novell just a few days after Hovsepian was named COO and given overall control of product development.
Hovsepian does have credibility with the investment community, though. A couple of weeks before the ouster of Jack Messman, Forbes magazine ( “Time For New CEO At Novell, Says Analyst”
) quoted Banc of America Securities analyst Kirk Materne as saying: “We believe Novell’s current challenges require a CEO with an operational and sales background and we believe appointing Mr. Hovsepian CEO would be well-received by the investment community.”
It appears that the company will have a short time to turn around its image with investment analysts and major shareholders. But what the marketing message will be is anybody’s guess. With no personal ties to legacy Novell products or the currently “hot” commodities of open source and Linux there are no clues as to what direction Hovsepian will set for the company.
Still, the investors and analysts called for the sell-off of Celerant Consulting and the company did that . They called for a restructuring to reduce the workforce, and the company did that. They called for the ouster of Jack Messman and the elevation of Ron Hovsepian, and the company did that. So what else did the investors and analysts ask for? As we reported ( “Investor and financial analyst urge Novell to sell off units” ) last fall, they want Novell to sell off “non-core businesses” specifically including GroupWise and ZENworks.
If Hovsepian is the chosen leader of these analysts and investors, then it appears that Novell’s future – at least as the company providing GroupWise, NetWare, ZENworks (and its major components, such as eDirectory) – isn’t one that current paying customers will be interested in. We’ll continue to follow
developments to see if the company is interested in its current customer base, of course, but the signs and portents aren’t good.
July 15th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
Interesting to see the lack of response. Hovespian will be gone within a year if Novell can’t convert the NetWare faithful to Linux.
The lost revenue from NetWare isn’t because anyone has lost faith in NetWare the product – only from being completely isolated and abandoned by Novell.
Again, I wish Novell the best. Betting the farm on a product that people can download for free and have over 350 “flavors” to choose from isn’t the wisest move Novell ever made, IMO.
Kearns’ latest newsletter clearly demonstrates a continuing need for NetWare from big clients as well as the smaller ones.
Sadly, Novell continues to completely ignore this with the Linux Blinders.