07.05.08

Do-No-Evil Saturday - Part III: Novell Finance, Security, and Other Leftovers

Posted in Microsoft, Finance, Novell, Bill Gates, Security, Identity Management, Corel at 8:46 am by Roy Schestowitz

Finance

A Novell director, Claudine Malone, has bought some shares, but we cannot say any more because it’s from Associated Farce. The recent buybacks and upgrade come to mind.

There is some more dull (and possibly automatically-generated) analysis:

First Trust Technology Alphadex Fund (First Trust Exchange-Traded Alphadex Fund) added the Novell Inc (NOVL) company to their portfolio, by buying 2,577 shares as shown by filings made public on 2008-06-27.

It is never nice to be named based on the number of companies that dumped you, but there you go:

Novell Inc (NOVL) latest rank by number of funds that dumped the company.

[…]

The total number of funds selling every share owned of Novell Inc (NOVL) is 54.

There are some other statistics of limited interest and a research report about Novell. It’s part of a large batch from this firm.

Introduction

Novell continues its transition after several significant developments in 2006, the partnership with Microsoft and the shift from a strategy for using the Open Enterprise Server (OES) product released in 2005. As a result of the strategy shift in the OES product, Novell is focusing on the other two large units, security and management to drive
overall top line growth.

Rogue History

Amid the departure of Bill Gates, stories return from the past again.

Novell held a long-term grudge and launched an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in 2004, eight years after selling WordPerfect to Corel for $115 million US. Novell said that Microsoft, led by Gates, conspired to kill off WordPerfect in 1994 by delaying providing the data that would have allowed the software to run smoothly on Windows 95. Microsoft’s obstructive tactics, detailed in e-mails from Bill Gates, led to WordPerfect’s market share declining to 10 per cent at the time of its sale to Corel, from 50 per cent in 1990, Novell said in its lawsuit.

Microsoft, which declined to make executives available for this story, has denied the charges and says Novell’s own mismanagement led to WordPerfect’s downfall. The lawsuit continues, with the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year denying an appeal by Microsoft to quash the case.

The two companies are still at court over this.

Groupwise

Here is another ISV that supports Novell’s Groupwise.

ImageGuard(tm) MailAssessor is designed to scan email accounts without installing software, and works with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Novell Groupwise, scanning images, files and attachments within servers.

Security/Identity

ICF was mentioned last week and it’s a significant enough deal to warrant press coverage even a week later. Here is what CBR had to say about this.

Microsoft is part of the line-up of backers along with Equifax, Google, Oracle, Novell, PayPal, and nine others. The key aim of the ICF is to raise awareness among online businesses and their customers and to ensure open standards

More here (interesting Novell-Microsoft proximity):

Technology A-Lister’s Equifax, Google, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, and PayPal, plus nine leaders in the technology community, announced the formation of a non-profit foundation, The Information Card Foundation, to promote simpler, more secure, and open digital identity management on the Internet.

On the security front, SUSE had this problem.

Content of This Advisory:
1) Security Vulnerability Resolved:
Linux kernel security update
Problem Description
2) Solution or Work-Around
3) Special Instructions and Notes
4) Package Location and Checksums
5) Pending Vulnerabilities, Solutions, and Work-Arounds:
See SUSE Security Summary Report.
6) Authenticity Verification and Additional Information

A moderately critical flaw in eDirectory was found as well, but that’s about all from the past week. █

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