The sudden departure of Novell Inc.'s chief executive officer, Jack Messman, is an uncharacteristic move for the quiet software giant, underlining its desire to mount a more aggressive challenge to Microsoft Corp.'s domination of the business desktop.
The writing had been on the wall for Mr. Messman and chief financial officer Joseph Tibbetts since the release of Novell's disappointing quarterly results on May 31, which drove shares down 22 per cent in three weeks. Chairman Thomas Plaskett was quick to say that naming sales specialist Ron Hovsepian as CEO last week wasn't a rethinking of Novell's acquisition of SUSE Linux, which Mr. Messman engineered in 2004 -- it was because the strategy around the open-source operating system wasn't paying off fast enough.
The war being waged by Linux evangelists against software from Microsoft has been barely visible to people outside information technology departments -- companies such as Armonk, N.Y.-based International Business Machines Corp. and Red Hat Inc. of Raleigh, N.C., have been offering their own flavours of it for years, focusing on a company's central computers, the so-called "back end." But Novell's revamped SUSE Linux threatens to spill the battle onto the desktop, and put office workers on the front lines.
Novell's tactic is making a frontal assault with its desktop package to wean corporate users off Microsoft products such as Windows and Word. Then it can follow up and sell products and services that complement the SUSE desktop -- the same strategy Microsoft used to dominate the business IT market.
Linux has several general advantages over Windows -- among them stability, security and lower cost -- but companies have been reluctant to commit to it because of a perception that it's arcane and tough to service.
Provo, Utah-based Novell is trying to persuade the corporate world that anyone who knows Microsoft's Windows will find the latest version of SUSE a breeze to learn and maintain.
An update to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 scheduled for August (a free preview was released Tuesday at http://www.novell.com/prerelease) will also have a feature that hard-core Linux developers typically loathe but mainstream users love: eye candy. SUSE XGL is a Macintosh-like animated desktop, with elements that twirl, spin, wobble and tumble.
Markham, Ont.-based Novell Canada Ltd.'s chief technology officer, Ross Chevalier, quietly acknowledges that cute, user-friendly elements like this are necessary to entice not only non-techie office workers, but corporations that would consider changing to Linux if they could be assured their users won't have to undergo lengthy retraining.
Making Linux a less disruptive force in the office could make it more disruptive in the marketplace if SUSE spreads. Novell also has a powerful weapon in its arsenal: its good name. Over its 24-year lifespan, Novell has built up a first-class reputation as a maker of worthy -- if dull -- network tools, such as identity and resource management and workgroup software, and for its dependable global support system.
This isn't Novell's first brush with Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft. Novell once rivalled Microsoft in network operating systems with Netware and Unix, and in office suites with WordPerfect, but Microsoft won both battles.
Will Novell's latest desktop-centric strategy work?
IDC's Mr. Senf points out that worldwide, Linux sales are rising 15 per cent a year as companies become more comfortable with open-source software.
Warren Shiau, senior analyst at IT Research in Toronto, says the big problem for SUSE is that any transition to a new desktop operating system within a business has to be seamless. That limits Novell's immediate success to those companies that do not use collaboration or teamwork software, most of which is written for Windows.
The wild card is that by year-end, Windows XP will become obsolete with the release of Microsoft's Windows Vista. That will force companies to decide whether to upgrade to Vista or look at alternative software, which means the timing for Novell's revamped, cheap and user-friendly SUSE could be spot on.
If Novell can capitalize on its solid reputation with the IT department and get office workers hooked on its desktop operating system, SUSE and the open-source programs that run on it will put a dent in Microsoft's armour, predicts Evan Leibovitch, a former director of the Linux Professional Institute in Toronto, and now director of a lobbying group called CLUE.
IDC's Mr. Senf agrees.
"Novell has very loyal customers, and a solid install base," he says. "It just won't die."
The shape of things to come
$35.7-billion
The estimated value of the global market for desktops, servers and packaged software running on Linux by 2008.$10-billion
The market for new and redeployed desktop PCs running Linux by 2008.
20%
The share of the desktop computer market that IT consulting company Siemens Business Systems predicts Linux will capture in large enterprises within five years.
22%
Proportion of servers in Canada that currently run Linux (mostly Red Hat Linux).
* ALL FIGURES U.S.; SOURCE: IDC CANADA
