CRN Interview: New Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian & Channel Chief Steve Erdman

CRN: Was Messman ousted by the board?

Hovsepian: It was the board's decision to sever the relationship with Jack and (CFO) Joe Tibbets. That was the board's decision. I was not in the board meeting.

CRN: How do you want to run the ship and what are you going to do to try to make Novell a Linux leader?

Hovsepian: In terms of policy or direction for the company, I am going to really focus in on three things: one is simplification of our businessmake sure that we drive a certain level of operational excellence and simplification of what we are trying to get done. That will translate into a better focus. The focus has to be on our markets and our customer segments and how we go to market, leveraging our partners, and what we need to get done with our key partners inside the marketplace. Those are things that are very critical to me as we go into the 2007 planning cycle. [Second is to] continue to really push our agenda towards our partners because they are the key to our success in the long run. The third area is just deliver on our commitments.

CRN: What do you think is too complicated right now?

Hovsepian: I'll give you an example. Over the years, because we have had multiple pricing models and multiple software companies we have bought, we have maintained a lot of different pricing models. That makes it really hard or complex for our partners to simplistically come into our company, do business, and then move through selling our products. That would just be a very simplistic example that is very real that my good friend Mr. Erdman has been enjoying running.

CRN: It sounds like you have a big focus on partners. Can you elaborate on what your partner philosophy is and how you plan to improve Novell's channel relations over the next year?

Hovsepian: I do have a big focus on that. The key for us to be successful is to go through partners. The reason why is we can only touch so many of the enterprises out there in the marketplace. The partners have much greater reach. When we were doing some of the analytics on the business, [we found] only 27 percent touch our direct channel only, meaning no partner touches it. Said differently, 73 percent of our revenue touches a partner. So the heart and soul of this company goes through our partners. When 73 percent of your revenue flows through your partners, that is your heart and soul. Now what we have to do is get more leverage out of that for ourselves and for our partners in the relationship. I think there are things that we are working on and have donelike the most recent Linux rebate program, as an example, is a good partnership approach that we have taken. Steve [Erdman], would you like to comment on what you have gotten done there for us?

Erdman: The first question you asked was [about] things we are doing to simplify our business. One of the things that I would highlight as well is the specialization tracks that we are developing. So, for instance, right now our partners have readily available access to Novell-certified engineering education, but they don't have readily available classes to help them build their skills around certain business unit initiatives. Take Linux, for instance. One of the things that we are trying to do in the way of simplifying our business with specific partners is having them declare their skills and value in areas they want to participate in, and then helping them and guiding them to the right path of education, or certification. Then we are building programs and value-added and profitability metrics around those different specializations. So they are no longer viewed as generalists. They are viewed as specialists by us.

CRN: Novell has done a lot of these things in the last couple of years, even under Messman. What are you going to do differently?