12.17.07
Signs That Matt Asay Woke Up on the Wrong Side of His Bed
Remember what was said the other day about Matt Asay being so nice to Novell all of a sudden? It’s a matter of pressure and sympathy. He used to slam Novell, but he now calls the impending layoffs “positive news”.
Novell planning more layoffs. Why this is positive news
I was surprised to learn today that Novell only employs 4100 people (down from 7000+ when I was there). The company is planning even more layoffs, a high percentage of which will almost certainly fall on the heads of Novell’s Utah-based employees as the company offshores development on things like Groupwise to India and as it consolidates operations in Waltham, Massachusetts, a process that has been underway for several years.
Matt, how can this be positive news? These are engineers who lost their job because of tactless decisions made by the management. It isn’t a happy divorce that ends an abusive relationship, so there’s nothing positive here (other than spin). Layoffs make everyone sad (no schadenfreude here), but let’s not pretend that these layoffs are something which they clearly are not.
Another example from today:
Time will tell, but Novell looks to be making a real drive to the goal with its recent Linux successes.
But he should really know better. It was him who said that Novell was cooking the books. Are bloggers using a magic 8 ball to decide who to rave about? Is it a matter of emotion, which surpasses rationale? Is it not just analysts that do this? █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Matt Asay said,
December 18, 2007 at 11:45 am
I *do* believe that the layoffs are good for the company and have been arguing this for years (even before I left the company back in 2004, though I couldn’t say this publicly back then). It’s because Novell’s future should be in open-source software, not all the silly second-rate businesses it has continued to hawk even as they fail to grow. I meant, in other words, that Novell should shed its other businesses and focus on its fastest-growing business: Linux.
I continue to be bearish on Novell, overall. I believe its execution is paltry at best. I don’t like the foundational reasons for its Linux success. Microsoft should never be the basis for a company’s Linux success. That’s a long-term recipe for failure.
Nothing has changed in how I view Novell. I *have* tried to be a little less acerbic, but that was for the better.