Fact is fact
"If I were a Novell shareholder I would be pushing for them to divi up thier mountain of cash and close up shop."
Riiight, and I'm sure you equally feel that you should be the recipient of some of that cash. Come to think of it, that almost makes as much sense as your opinion. Probably a good thing that you aren't a shareholder.
"The current stategy of trying to get thier customer base for an ancient directory service to switch to an OS they can get for free doesnt seem lik a long term winner and I would be surprised if the company ever made a profit again."
First, you can't switch from a directory to an operating system, different technologies. Secondly, Linux (no matter what the flavour) is FREE (let that sink in for a bit), yes dude, LINUX IS FREE.
Either way, fact is fact (according to the article):
- Growth in 3 strategic areas
- Double digit year over year growth in Linux
- Exceeded market expectations
Funny how technologists (as well as non-technical decision makers [to which I've always considered to be an oxymoron]) who used Novell to once solve a critical problem and helped their organizations cut costs criticize Novell based on emotion and continue to buy (and in some cases try to implement) mass marketed insecure technologies, tolerate downtime on email, and STILL pay billions of dollars into that investment.
Also, to date, the so called "ancient directory service" continues to be the most scalable directory in the world with an implementation that holds over 40 million objects and over delivers on all SLAs.