Novell 2010: Can One Man Make a Difference?
When Novell announced a reorganization this week, The VAR Guy took some time to digest the news. He sipped his latte and mulled Novell’s stated direction. Now, our resident blogger is ready to weigh in with an opinion. Specifically, keep an eye on Novell Senior VP Joe Wagner. His partner ecosystem moves in 2010 will define whether Novell’s latest business strategy succeeds or fails. Here’s why.
First, let The VAR Guy set the mood: Novell on Dec. 8 announced an Intelligent Workload Management (IWM) strategy. IWM is one of the first strategies that actually leverages most of Novell’s product portfolio. So far so good.
Next up, Novell on Dec. 14 unveiled a company reorganization that consolidated some business groups. As part of that announcement Novell said:
“Joe Wagner will transition from his current role as senior vice president and general manager SRM solutions to the expanded new role of senior vice president and general manager of Global Alliances. Wagner will be responsible for Novell’s strategic partnerships as well as developing an IWM partner ecosystem with cloud, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and telecommunications providers.”
Translation: Wagner is responsible for Novell’s next-generation partner ecosystem. Think of it this way…
- Chief Marketing Officer/Channel Chief John Dragoon continues to work closely with VARs, integrators and distributors.
- But Wagner has to rally cloud, IaaS and telecom providers around Novell’s IWM strategy.
That’s no small task. On paper, IWM seems to make sense. But in terms of day-to-day competition, Novell faces everyone from Red Hat to BMC to CA to a range of identity management vendors. Competing on all of those fronts won’t be easy. And Novell’s most recent quarterly financial results weren’t all that spectacular.
So can one man make a difference? Is Wagner ready to build Novell’s next generation IWM partner ecosystem? The VAR Guy is watching, and listening, for clues.