Novell, Where's the chin-music?

George Stalk, Jr and Rob Lachenauer published, what I consider the most profound and applicable to Novell's current situation, an article in the Harvard Business Journal titled "HARD BALL: FIVE KILLER STRATEGIES FOR TROUNCING THE COMPETITION. Oh, I know you are cringing at such a brazen title, and think what kind of ENRON wing-nut advice are you going to blog about now?

Put it this way, if your manager has given a presentation on, that rife for excuses and a losing attitude, book "Who moved my cheese?" than you need to read this article! Or, if you are sitting around crying "unfair" and "anti-competitive" while your competitor is kicking you ass all the way to the bank; I suggest you read-on.

HardBall, as defined by the authors, is playing within the rules of the game, but it is throwing that 100 mph fast ball high and inside to your competitor who's crowding the plate. That's the chin-music! He'll think twice before he crowds that plate again, and you know this! Again I ask; Novell, where's the chin-music?

RedHat acquired Jboss, which moves them up the solution stack, and gives them a more complete offering for customers (Does this sound like Windows and IE, not much difference, it builds upon an existing solution, and you think Redhat will include it free in their solution? Yip, count on-it!). I don't believe RedHat's acquisition of Jboss was chin-music for Novell, but it did whiz by Microsoft because Balmer started talking aggressively about "software as a service", which happens to be the open source business model (I don't believe MSFT will ever go open source, but they will encroach on our sales methodologies).

"Hardball players pursue with a single-minded focus competitive advantage and the benefits it offers-leading market share, great margins, rapid growth, and all the intangibles of being in command. They pick their shots, seek out competition's encounters, set the pace of innovation, test the edges of the possible. They play to win. And they do."

Novell should throw two very fast and very flagrant balls to both Redhat and Microsoft. With relentless effort they should pursue exclusive partnerships with IBM, BEA, Oracle (maybe Sun?), and anyone else who plays in the middleware market. That fastball translates to, development collaboration, joint marketing and sales, channel growth, and a very public, front and center, kiss from these partners. A kiss, so discomforting that it makes RedHat and Microsoft employees diversify their portfolio's: the symbol is NOVL, if you were wondering.

Take some time to think about this, and I will post some more thoughts about playing hardball in the next few days.

The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

Note to journalists and other readers: Unless you receive express written permission to the contrary from the author of the content of this blog/website, reproduction or quotation of any statements appearing on this blog/website is not authorized.