03.01.08

Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part III: Novell’s Latest Buys, Financial Results

Posted in Finance, Novell, Deals, Google, Virtualization, Africa at 2:37 am by Roy Schestowitz

News which is listed below we have probably already covered in from negative point-of-view, but here is another way of viewing them.

PlateSpin and SiteScape Acquisitions

Here is Novell’s press release which announces the acquisition of PlateSpin.

Novell today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire PlateSpin Ltd. This acquisition will extend Novell’s leadership position in the next-generation data center by providing the only solution to dynamically deliver business critical services across both physical and virtual infrastructures.

Here is Dragoon’s take.

From one of the many articles about it:

Networking software firm Novell is to acquire PlateSpin, a virtualisation provider specialising in data centres. Novell hopes the purchase of PlateSpin will strengthen its position in the next-generation data centre market by enabling it to provide business critical services across both physical and virtual infrastructures. A value of the deal was not disclosed.

Joining in a little late, Jeff Jaffe chimed in and explained the purpose of the SiteScape acquisition.

Earlier this month, Novell announced the acquisition of SiteScape, a provider of team workspace and real-time conferencing solutions. Let’s view this acquisition through the lens of key industry megatrends: telco convergence, social networking, and open source.

Finance

Novell’s financial results seemed positive, they lifted the stock, and expectations for times ahead seemed brighter. It is hard, however to believe what counts as Linux revenue because of the cook-booking practices we mentioned before. In any event, here is the Reuters article which covers it.

Business software maker Novell Inc on Thursday reported a quarterly net profit that beat Wall Street estimates on lower costs and a 65 percent increase in sales of its Linux open source software and services.

The company also raised its revenue outlook for the year, and its shares rose 4.7 percent in extended trade.

Speaking of finances, former Chief Financial Officer at Novell, Ronald Foster, resigned from his identical role at FormFactor.

Prior to joining FormFactor, Mr. Foster was CFO for JDS Uniphase for a two-year period, preceded by his time as CFO for Novell Corporation. He also served as Vice President and Operations Controller for Applied Materials and spent over ten years with Hewlett Packard in a variety of financial roles.

Novell Personalities

Remember Masie? He gets mentioned in this article about Google.

That’s enough to make anyone quit their job and become a Googler. Masie did. He left his job as managing director of IT company Novell to head Google in South Africa.

Masie spent four years as the head of Novell SA. He joined the company in 1996 as product marketing director, then as global business strategist for Novell Inc and then global corporate technology strategist in 2001. In 2003, he was made managing director of the company.

There is also this article which talks about Novell’s Matt Bowman, but it’s quite minor.

PROVO — For anyone who’s ever told a relative or friend that fun activities don’t exist in Utah County, a newly invented race may alter some of those thoughts.

During a Chamber of Commerce meeting, Matt Bowman, marketing director for Novell, heard distressed small-business owners complain that they couldn’t generate demand for the products or services they offered.

That’s all for this week. █

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