Novell's Giovia To Head Up New Unified Partner Organization

Novell

During his keynote at the company's annual Brainshare 2002 conference here, Novell Vice Chairman Chris Stone said Novell will merge all of its solution providers, consulting and systems integrators, ISVs, hardware partners and OEMs under one group as it attempts to transform itself from a pure products company into a solutions company.

Stone told CRN that Novell veteran Giovia will be named to head up that group in about one week.

Throughout his keynote on Monday morning, Stone, who stepped in to conduct the keynote for ailing Novell CEO Jack Messman, alluded to a major effort to re-engage channel partners to the Novell bandwagon.

"It's time we take some aggressive tactics," Stone said during his keynote, noting a drop-off in channel sales of NetWare due to incursions by Microsoft.

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"Microsoft is giving away NT to displace our product. Well, damn it, we're going to do the same thing. Our channel will be re-invigorated. We're going to play Microsoft at its own game," he said.

Acknowledging that Novell has dropped the ball on the channel for the past several years, Stone said solution providers and systems integrators will be recruited heavily to sell the myriad of solutions being developed jointly by Novell and its Cambridge Technology Partner subsidiary. As first reported by CRN, Novell announced several new products and solutions at Brainshare, including Zenworks Synergy, Novell Workspace and a new business process solution for local governments.

Novell plans to integrate its sales and consulting forces and lead channel partners back to Novell with a new "edgy, aggressive" attitude, Stone said. "The channel is back. We're not going to ignore it anymore."

Novell also plans to name a new vice president of North American Channels shortly.