Novell Names New Channel VP

Reynolds, a longtime Novell veteran has worked in a variety of capacities at Novell, including channels, prior to this new assignment. Most recently, she helped coordinate activities with Novell's premium partners. In her new role, Reynolds will be responsible for driving channel sales in her geography. She will report directly to Carv Moore, president of Novell's Americas region.

Messman says Reynolds became his choice for the job after a comprehensive review of both external and internal candidates.

"Nancy is a steady performer and everybody knows her," Messman says in praise of his new vice president. "She has a long history with Novell in channel sales."

In addition to increasing sales through the channel, Reynolds will be tasked to help implement Novell's forthcoming operational rules of engagement.

"We have come out with version 1.0 of the partners handbook," Messman says. "We're now working [with partners to revise it."

Messman anticipates the company will be ready to publish these rules of engagement, which amplify the concepts spelled out last fall when Novell unveiled its Clear Channel initiative, at the end of April after another round or two of internal revisions.

"In addition to rules of engagement, it will includes ways to escalate things, to air grievances, etc.," Messman says.

In addition to these changes, Novell is also working to perfect a closed-loop lead generation system that will fully automate the process of following leads as they pass from Novell to partners. Also, Messman adds, Novell is close to identifying which of its current end user accounts it will continue to serve directly. Today, the list of customers that Novell direct sales people call on is lengthy. But that will change, Messman says, even to the point of creating a little "culture shock" among its direct salesforce. The reason? He wants his direct sales team to focus on going deeper with key customers, he said.

Thus far, the list of Novell direct accounts is roughly 850 companies long. In addition, Novell is drawing up a second list of large, enterprise accounts that it will target in conjunction with partners. It, too, is roughly 850 names long, though Messman stresses that neither list has been finalized.

"One of the things we planned to do was name our named accounts," he says. "But we found some difficulties in isolating the data that would allow us to do that quickly. We are in the process of doing that."

The work is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter.