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October 2, 2000 "All Microsoft really wants is $50 a year in upgrades from every man, woman and child on the planet." --Gene Mazurek,Bancroft & Masters | |||||||||
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Novell: Grasping or Gasping? I'd like to thank Art Wittmann for his August 21 cover story "Novell: Greatness Beyond the Grasp." As a long-time Novell reseller, my company can certainly understand his position. In his column in that same issue, Wittmann cites the Green Bay Packers and its fans in comparison with the loyalty Novell inspires ("What Lengths Loyalty?" August 21), I would say such a following is almost religious in nature, yet I can't say it's totally unfounded. One problem--discussed by Ron Anderson in his online column "Novell NetWare 3.11: Too Good for Its Own Good" -- is that the software is just too good. This puts us in an odd position: In all good conscience, we can't recommend upgrades and such when they are unnecessary. Microsoft, to the contrary, has built in the need for constant upgrades and, therefore, incremental revenue. My blood pressure goes up every time I think of the money spent just going from MS-DOS 3.0 to 3.whatever to 4.0 to 5 to 6. Then came the Windows iterations. And most of this because Microsoft's software just didn't work that well from the start. Around here we often say, "All Microsoft really wants is $50 a year in upgrades from every man, woman and child on the planet." One thing I would quibble with in the column is the following statement: "Novell management will tell you that NetWare is a cornerstone. If that's the case, then that corner of the Novell dynasty has been laid on quicksand." First, you can't ignore such a huge installed base without paying a heavy price. NetWare is still--by far--the best out there, for better or worse. This does not mean, of course, that anyone wants to buy it. Second, NetWare has not been a cornerstone of anything at Novell in quite a while. At least it seems that way from our perspective. Novell threw away its bread-and-butter small- and medium-sized business customers--its NetWare customers--in favor of anything it could could put an "e" in front of. Resellers have been ignored, as have the classic "red box" products.
While it is necessary to prepare this "e-smorgasbord," others still need to eat while the chefs prepare the new fare. Breeding Loyalty After reading "What Lengths Loyalty?" I'd like to tell Art Wittmann that I believe I have a good reason to be loyal to Novell. I'm not some "Windblows" junkie who thinks I must have the latest and greatest thing our friend Bill has released on technology's bleeding edge. My customers require their networks to stay up and running. I also support everything I sell for one year. If I install a Novell network, then I don't have to fix it until the customer runs out of disk space--in about three years. If I install a Microsoft Windows NT network, I have to visit the customer many times for free. I suppose it's silly of me to be loyal to an operating system that has not hurt me. I suppose it would be much more intelligent to put my hand back into the snake pit called NT. What about your loyalty, Wittmann, to Bill Gates and Co.? If you're looking for a network server that runs well and is the latest and greatest, you should be saying the same things about "Microshaft" that you say about Novell. Have you ever compared the reliability of Novell NetWare, Windows NT and Linux? Have you ever compared the installation costs of these three systems? Have you ever compared the time required to keep each of these three running? Have you ever compared the cost of lost data to the end users?
I must admit, I did have a customer that lost data on its Novell system. The customer forgot to perform backups, and after four years of continuous trouble-free running, the hard drive crashed. Service Sans Smile I'd like to comment on Dave Molta's August 21 column, "A Little Service, Please". Almost all the service problems with ISPs are related to one thing: ISPs refuse to pay their first-level techs. They hire inexperienced people for low pay but don't increase the pay relative to the experience gained. These techs work there just long enough to move up or move out. Proper incentives would draw in--and help ISPs keep--staff; that fixes the first problem Molta mentions. The staff would stay longer and move up more slowly if there were less of a financial reason to do so, resulting in better first-level skills; that fixes the second problem. With a larger, better-trained and experienced first-level tech staff, the higher-level support wouldn't have to deal with as many lower-level problems; that fixes problem three. With these changes, customer service could only improve; that addresses but does not fix the fourth problem. ISPs also need to do other things to keep staff, such as offering training, bonuses and other incentives. But no one can stay at any particular job if he or she can't pay the bills.
Having been in phone support (not for an ISP), I can easily say that the first-level techs make or break a public's perception of a company when a problem is encountered. Companies just need to recognize that value. Correction In the article "Top 10 Things To Know About Wireless", we incorrectly stated that SpectraLink's Netlink DTS hardware uses 1 Mbps of bandwidth when a call is in session. It uses 150 Kbps when a call is in session. |
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