Everyone seems to have given up on software company Novell.
In the early 1990s, the company held as much as 75 percent of the market share for server operating systems with its Netware application. But when Microsoft started making inroads with Windows NT, it tried to beat Microsoft at its own game by purchasing Word Perfect, among other things, instead of concentrating on its core strengths.
And trying to beat Microsoft at its own game "is just something you just don"t do [when] you don"t have the brand name recognition and visibility of a Microsoft," Laura DiDio, director of desktop and server operating systems for Giga Information Group, told NewsFactor Network.
As a result of this strategic error and other marketing missteps, many now perceive Novell as "this old company taking that long inexorable walk to the high-tech elephant graveyard," DiDio said. Nasdaq"s announcement that it was bumping Novell off its Nasdaq-100 Index only reinforces the perception.
But in two months, Novell will release new adaptive configuration management software that could upend the balance between Novell and its longtime nemesis.