The folly of its ways

Novell finally finished reviewing its stock options grants over the past dozen years, so they could release their quarterly and annual reports that had been delayed. That's the good news.

The quarterly for the 1st quarter of fiscal year 2007 (Nov 1 2006-Jan 31 2007) is the most recent financial report and its not good news. According to ITJungle, "When all the math was done and the taxes paid," the bottom line was "...a $19.9 million net loss, or about 6 cents per share, compared to a net profit of $1.9 million in the year ago quarter, or 1 cent a share."

The really bad news, though, was that Novell's "Workgroup" reporting group (NetWare, Open Enterprise Server, and GroupWise) posted sales of $104.9 million, down 11 percent, but it had an operating profit of $74.5 million, down 8 percent. As the story said, "You can see now why Novell hangs onto its NetWare and Groupwise business."

Too bad Novell's management didn't realize - even as often as we told them - that there was a market for NetWare, and it wouldn't cost a lot to pursue it. Just one more indication that Novell never did understand marketing.