Not even close
Doug Mentohl wrote:
> 5. Not merging with Lotus ..
Not Merging with Lotus was mostly a case of bad timing. Keep in mind
that in 1990, Microsoft was doing their bundleware solution, giving
OEMs the option of Windows alone for $100 per copy, or Windows with
Office for $150. In effect, Microsoft was "dumping" Office on the
market in order to kill WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, who had both put
their weight behind OS/2.
Ironically, SCO was also offering a good UNIX based desktop solution
based on X11R4 and had gotten Michael Dell to sign up. Lotus had
decided to throw ports of Lotus 1-2-3 behind Linux on X11 and added
features that didn't appear on Excel until almost 15 years later, and
some of them still don't exist on Windows (such as "hot cells").
> 4. NetWare Lite ..
The big problem was Novell's insistance on clinging to IPX/SPX instead
of switching to TCP/IP in a really aggressive way. Microsoft even made
a sweetheart deal with Novell, to encourage them to stick with this
"dead-end" technology which limited each server connection to a
theoretical maximum of 255 users, and a practical limit of about 16
users.
Microsoft was trying to divert attention away from the fact that NT
Server would not be supporting NFS, and would only support SMB using
NetBIOS over TCP/IP. Microsoft may have cut a deal with Novell, who
were now the proud owers of UnixWare, to keep UnixWare off the desktop,
in exchange for not offering NFS (the NFS/TCP/IP was a bigger potential
threat at that moment than SMB).
> 3. Ever-changing strategies ..
Novell has a notorious habit of backstabbing their own CEOs, especially
when they are out of town. The CEO of a corporation often holds the
proxy voting rights for the majority of the stock holders. However,
when the CEO is out of the country, and is not able to direct his proxy
votes, it is possible for other corporate officers holding minority
proxy voting rights, can use their votes to institute policies, fire
directors, or even force the signing of contracts designed to limit the
barganing ability of the CEO.
According to one report, such an approach was made, by Microsoft, while
Ray Noorda was out of the country, possibly negotiating an OEM
agreement with NEC to install UnixWare workstation on all NEC
computers. Keep in mind that NEC was the company who released the
earliest version of Windows, but made very little profit in doing so,
and made itself a target of other vendors.
Appearantly, Microsoft came in, demanded an immediate signature, and
Noorda, who was in Asia, couldn't be contacted at 3 AM his time. The
board signed the contract, in which Novell promised to curtail their
UnixWare workstation efforts completely (even stopping Noorda from
closing his deal with NEC).
Noorda appearantly retaliated. He gave control of the trademark to
X/Open, granted unlimited distribution licenses under the BSD license,
and sold unlimited UNIX distribution rights to companies like Sun and
IBM. And to make sure that Novell would be crippled, he sold what few
remaining rights existed to SCO in exchange for shares in SCO.
Almost immediately after leaving Novell, Noorda created the Canopy
group, which formed and financed Caldera, TrollTech (KDE), and several
other strategic ventures. Noorda had made up his mind that he was
going to use Linux to destroy Microsoft.
Novell tried similar tactics with Eric Schmidt, killing his attempts to
get WordPerfect into the OEM market, and make the transition to TCP/IP
and LDAP. Eventially, he sold off rights to DRI, including GEM and
DR-DOS to Caldera, and sold WordPerfect to Corel.
Eventually, Corel also went the Linux route as well. Corel even got
into the OEM market through the back door. They found out which
motherboards were going to be used by the OEMs, and licensed copies of
Corel Linux to these Motherboard makers for 50 cents per copy. Strange
as it may sound, nearly 1/2 of the machines sold in 2000, were licensed
to run Corel Linux. Of course, Microsoft had other plans, and wrote in
clauses which forbade any alteration of the boot sequence, even as the
DOJ was filing antitrust action against them.
Microsoft dealt with Corel in their own way. They infiltrated the
board room, using a capital fund to shield their actions, and
circulated rumors of irregular accounting practices. Just as the stock
price began to falter, often to as low as $3/share, huge amounts of
stock were being purchased in a matter of days, shooting the price up
to almost $30 per share, shortly after Red Hat went public. In
hindsight, this was probably Microsoft taking control of Corel. The CEO
who had been backing Linux was fired, Microsoft gave Corel a modest
infusion of cash, in exchange for termination of their Linux efforts.
> 2. Buying Digital Research ..
See the above scenario. Noorda wanted DRI because he wanted both
DR-DOS, and GEM. Keep in mind that DR-DOS was based ot CP/M-86 and
featured full preemptive multitasking, and GEM had a Mac-like interfac,
back when Microsoft was trying to get Windows 1.0 to work on Windows
3.1.
Microsoft used it's "vaporware" tactics against DR-DOS, promising true
multitasking in MS-DOS 4.0 and full support for Windows that would be
as good as Mac or GEM. This was back in 1987. Ironically, this was
one of the first times that the Federal Trade Commission began a formal
investigation of Microsoft's business tactics, investigating them for
fraud. Just as the commission was about to vote in favor of filing
fraud charges, Microsoft pulled out one if it's weasel-worded
settlements, made nice with Edwin Meese, and get the FTC to vote 4-3 in
favor of not initiating public fraud proceedings.
Microsoft also appears to have used the same tactic described above,
having the board of directors tie Noorda's hands, to force him to stay
out of the OEM Workstation market. Had the board given Noorda a free
rein, he might have put Novell in position as the dominant OS vendor,
or at least created a competive market.
Bill Gates II made sure that Bill Gates III could not lose control of
the company. Not only was he in control of nearly 51 percent of the
company through direct ownership and proxy rights, combined with
backing from Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen, but he also retained power
of attorney for his son when he was out of the country and could not be
reached, meaning that no decision could be made without Bill making the
decision first.
Novell on the other hand, wasn't so tightly structured. The CEO held
only a small stake directly, and held proxy votes granted to him by
venture capital funds and mutual fund managers. But even these proxy
votes were often granted to other board members, including the CFO.
With SCO, the CFO of SCO was very closely tied to Microsoft. When
capital was needed for the SCO/Caldera merger, the CFO sold debentures,
which could be cashed in for shares, and voting rights. Since the
stock prices were falling, it made no sense to cash in the debentures,
which had a guaranteed return and value, for shares in the company,
which was selling for almost 1/4 the debenture face value. And yet,
someone did it. Perhaps the CFO know that the real buyer of most of
these debentures were holding companies funded by Microsoft executives
and key stockholders. When this was combined with proxies from mutual
funds, venture capital, and private funds, the directors were able to
fire Ransom Love, and hire Daryl McBride who filed a "suicide" lawsuit.
Ironically, it is this very lawsuit which may be Microsoft's biggest
problem. IBM is now demanding disclosures of SCO investors and
funding, and has already uncovered some indications of illegal stock
manipulation (avoiding SEC reporting requirements). Microsoft may even
find that IBM could dig up some of these other documents and product
stock manipulations as well.
Keep in mind that the Antitrust hearing didn't try to prove that the
Microsoft monopoly was illegally obtained, but did prove that it had
been illegally maintained. If IBM can unearth the proof that Microsoft
illegally established it's monopoly for everything other than MS-DOS,
it could mean that all Microsoft executives working for Microsoft from
1984 ot 2006 could be prosecuted under RICO acts.
> 1. Buying WordPerfect ..
Novell may have actually been making a sensible investment, but again,
the Board of Directors tied Eric Schmidt's hands. Novell purchased
wordPerfect in early 1994. Microsoft had just released an "upgrade" to
Office and Office had a bad habit of "losing it's mind". Large
documents were an especially significant problem. One of the other
advantages of WordPerfect was that - due to Microsoft's backstabbing,
WordPerfect and their products were designed to run on many different
platforms. This would have been a strong fit for OS/2, SCO Unix,
Solaris, or UnixWare. Novell had everything they needed to go into a
toe-to-toe slugging match with Microsoft - but then there was that
insane board of directors.
I was a Novell customer, back when Novell Data Systems was selling
Workstations and I even met Jack Messman, Chuck Seroges and others in
that small company, when they drove from Salt Lake City to Denver
Colorado to visit a little company called Data Law. I was one of the
earliest NetWare customers. I have never been able to confirm this,
but I have been told by others that I am CNE number 5.
Novell's biggest mistake was clinging to their proprietary technology,
especially IPX/SPX from 1992 to 1999. They didn't adopt "open"
standards until 1999 with NetWare 5, and only then adopted pure IP
support. Ironically, Novell appears to have made a deal with Microsoft
about the same time that Microsoft announced ActiveDirectory. It was
supposed to be LDAP (NDS) compatible, but had little "hooks" designed
to sabotage NDS and other public LDAP implementations.
Perhaps it's time for a full inquisition of all of the board of
directors, to see if they are really acting in the best interests of
investors in Novell, or if they are in fact, working on behalf of
Microsoft, meaning that they are engaging in securities fraud,
racketeering, and consumer fraud.
> http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35965
http://www.novellmuseum.net/history_of_novell_g.htm
http://www.panug.org/news/articles/novonics.htm
http://www.unix.org/what_is_unix/history_timeline.html
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