Novell talks big on web services

Novell CEO Jack Messman was bullish this morning as he took the wraps off the company's One Net web services strategy.

Speaking at Novell Brainshare Europe in Barcelona, Messman said the company's new strategy would reap double digit revenue growth by 2003 and generate significant profit margins.

He said: "Novell has a 17 per cent share of the server market and I hope that our percentage of the web services market is higher. We realise we won't be number one but we can be in the top three to five."

Novell's Netware 6 will be used as the platform to support the web services. Other One Net components include eDirectory, DirXML connectors, iChain, Novell SecureLogin, OnDemand, Portal Services and Volera for delivering content.

Novell's strategy is based on adopting open standards such as SOAP, UDDI and XML. This, claimed Messman, will allow the company's web services to be integrated with the services offered by Sun One or Microsoft's .Net.

"The battlefield has changed. Customers no longer write applications to the Windows client. They are writing to web services, portals and platform independent codes and this is where Novell will compete and win," he said.

Setting Microsoft firmly in his sights, Messman said: "The services Microsoft are touting are basic. Microsoft has never been big in the enterprise. To extend into this area you need security and scalability and Microsoft is not there yet."

Messman then turned his attention to other competitors.

"While IBM, Sun and Microsoft adopt a large, expensive approach based entirely on their own products, Novell recognises that it must be cost effective and allow products from all these vendors to work together.

"This means using the value of the existing software and hardware and not advocating rip and replace," he added

Messman said today's announcement is the latest step in the company's attempts to return to profitability.

"We have already managed to cut $200m in costs," said Messman, "and our web services strategy will reinvent our key products Groupware, Zenworks and Netware."

The efforts are starting to pay off. The company posted an $8.4m profit for the first quarter of 2002, despite analyst predictions to the contrary. Novell, said Messman, has learnt from the past.

The decision to launch direct sales to compete with channel partners was, he admitted, a mistake and cost the company business. Revenue also declined post Y2K as demand for updated products dried up.

However, key to the success of One Net's success will be how it's marketed. In the past, Novell has often been seen as the poor relation to Microsoft in marketing terms, a problem Messman readily admits to.

But he is determined this will change, even if it means altering the culture of the entire company.

"Our culture has been as an engineering company but we need to listen harder now to the market and to what our customers want. We need to place more emphasis on our technology as solutions and I hope our acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners will allow us to do that.

"We recognise our need to improve marketing and that is my goal in my tenure as CEO."