Richard Bliss Blog

Interoperability - Novell Losing the Word

Novell has been focused with their messaging lately. They have told me on numerous occasions that they want to own the word "Interoperability".

Okay, I can understand wanting to own that word. It makes me wonder if anyone is hearing Novell talk about Interoperability.

I know one company is - Microsoft.

This week in eWeek (www.eweek.com) they had a story on the main page.

Microsoft Pushes Interoperability

It was in the Linux and Open Source Section. Looks like Novell is getting through to someone and that someone has decided they want that word for themselves.

At this point Novell is either going to have to fight for the ownership of the word or find a new word.

First would be to get themselves listed in the top ten on Google ranking for the word Interoperability. That would certainly help. Right now Microsoft is listed as #3 and #4 by Google for the word Interoperability.

My recommendation is that they pick a new word that Microsoft can't own or doesn't own.

First choice - Business-Driven Linux
Second choice Teaming

Novell GroupWise wants to own the word collaboration as well.

Novell can win this battle and own a word but it will take some focused effort. Right now they have a big company, Microsoft that wants to take it away from them.

BTW, GWAVACon, The Novell Teaming and GroupWise conference is just around the corner. www.gwavacon.com to register and get the early bird special. It is in Las Vegas this year, January 2009.

Fear holds us back

Why do smart people do dumb things? Especially when it comes to marketing. Haven't you seen a company that goes along doing really smart stuff suddenly seem like they got a major case of the stupids?

What causes individual people to not do the right thing when the time comes?

Fear holds us back. Fear prevents us from stepping out and doing the right thing.

When Bill Gates famously turned his company around and moved it full steam into the Internet age, he was able to do this because he didn't care and wasn't afraid of what other people would say. Those people included his staff, his employees, his partners, his stockholders, and most importantly, his customers.

He did the right thing and didn't let fear hold him back.

Novell found itself paralyzed with fear for years. The people there had grown fat and happy with the way things were. NetWare was generating nearly $1 Billion in annual revenue and things looked sweet.

Except the bottom of the boat had been ripped out and the ship was sinking. But no one seemed willing to stand up and do something. Fear paralyzed the company. Those making the decisions would say that it wasn't fear, that they were trying to save it. Yes, they may have been attempting to save it, but they were afraid to stand up and say "NetWare is Dead" and then work from that premise. Instead they kept rearranging the chairs on the deck while the ship sank.

I remember when Chris Stone stood up at BrainShare and said that maybe the future of Novell wasn't NetWare. What a commotion it created. Everyone was in a panic. Even when it was plainly stated, those inside the company continued to tell themselves that Chris wasn't serious. He was just talking. No, he was serious, and wasn't afraid to say it.

When Ron Hovsepian made the decision to embrace a partnership with Microsoft, he made a lot of enemies. But he wasn't afraid to make a very hard choice that was good for his company and good for his customers. He still has the enemies but he also has success which makes dealing with your enemies a little easier.

Good people and good companies make bad decisions when they are afraid to rock the boat. When internal Chicken Littles actual prevent action because they are crying about the sky falling in. Seldom does the sky actually fall when strong bold decisions are made. It is the lack of a decision, the inability to get past those that wring their hands and prophesy doom, that leads to disaster.

If you want to be successful, have the courage to make the tough decisions. You will make enemies but success makes it a little easier to deal with them.

Vista winning the Enterprise - I don't think so

Joshua Greenbaum with ZDNet recently wrote an article discussing how Vista will win in the Enterprise but will do it the ugly way.

I'm going to disagree here. If Vista is winning, it is doing it with a pyrrhic victory.

Definition of Pyrrhic: a victory with devastating cost to the victor

Vista has forced all of us, or the 97% of the computer world that runs Windows, to reconsider our decision. For the first time, a true competitor to Vista, Microsoft's latest desktop OS has emerged, and it is XP. Microsoft is attempting to sell all of us something we don't want, at a price we can't afford, to do things that have no value to us.

And it has caused all of us to pause and reconsider. And that is where Vista has lost. For the first time the market is looking around and asking if there is anything easier than Vista? And since we can't have XP, then what are our alternatives.

Some will turn to Linux, with the allure of lower cost and freedom from proprietary tyranny. Others, like myself, will embrace Mac completely, putting up with the problems of making the adjustment because I'm already aware the problems with going to Vista are even bigger.

Some businesses will embrace the Microsoft path of madness. But many others will begin the imperceptible process of slowing down our decision to purchase more Microsoft. The economy will help mask the truth that people aren't willing to send their shrinking IT budgets to Redmond.

This is an opportunity for Red Hat, Ubuntu, Novell, and Apple, and IBM with their Mainframes.

Microsoft has given every single person on the planet a reason to stop and reconsider, and this time there is a wide range of choices.

Vista has lost the Enterprise, not won it.

Microsoft CRM integration from a Novell GroupWise Partner

I sat down and had a chat the other day with Aldo Zanoni, CEO of Omni, a long time Novell GroupWise ISV partner.

They have positioned themselves as the GroupWise Integration Company.

Their newest product, Riva, allows CRM integration with GroupWise, including Microsoft CRM.

One of the reasons Omni has built in integration for Microsoft products like Microsoft CRM and Sharepoint, which will be released soon, is to preserve the GroupWise installation.

According to Aldo, "If you provide integration to the products that are already there, it lowers the possibility that the entire GroupWise system will be thrown out"

I have found this to be very true. A recent comment on one of my blog postings was from a person who's organization is looking to throw out thousands of users on GroupWise simply so that a few hundred can use Microsoft CRM.

I hope some lets that guy know that Riva might be able to save the day for him.

To bad his comment was anonymous otherwise I'd tell him myself.

Positioning and Novell GroupWise

An oversimplified definition of Positioning is to focus your message on the receiving end and ignore the sending end.

Hmmm...maybe that wasn't so simplified. In other words, in today's world where we are shouted at with advertising all day long, it is really hard to be heard. So instead of trying to shout louder, that would be the sending end, attempt to focus on what the target customer is thinking and already believes. Figure out what word the customer already has in their head and figure out how to grab that word.

GroupWise and Marketing

If I were to run a full page GroupWise ad in the Wall Street Journal every day for a month, what do you think would happen to sales of GroupWise? Not much.

This would be an example of shouting louder.

What could I say to a reader of the Wall Street Journal that cause them to care about Novell GroupWise? Not much.

The reason is complex, but I'll take a stab at simplifying it.

There are several things that will run through my head IF I even see the ad.

"What's GroupWise?"
"Who's Novell?"
"GroupWise is Email, do I have an email problem?"

This last question is the important one. That is the one that is what the ad should be all about.

As I read the ad I'm asking myself in the back of mind, "Do I have the problem that this product is attempting to solve?"

That is where positioning does its magic.

The reader doesn't care what the product does. The reader simply wants to know, "Do I have the problem that the product is attempting to solve"

What problem does GroupWise solve?

Now that we understand that we have to say something in our ad that a reader of the Wall Street Journal would be interested in, it makes it much clearer how we go about this.

Do we run an ad that explains all the technical issues about GroupWise? Nope. WSJ readers probably aren't going to be interested in a general information piece.

Do WSJ readers have email? Yes, most definitely. What email are they running? Good chance it is Exchange or Lotus Notes.

Is there a problem with their email that would cause them to consider getting rid of either one of those?

Here is where it is important. We have to find a pain that is felt so deeply, that a customer would be willing to throw out Microsoft Exchange and experiment with Novell GroupWise.

GroupWise is known for three things. Stability, Security, and low cost of ownership.

Stability won't work. An Exchange user won't believe that GroupWise is more stable even if it is. They simply won't believe that MS, the #1 vendor would be inferior on the technical side.

Security - Maybe this would have worked a few years ago. Mostly, if there is a huge security threat, they won't get rid of Exchange, they will just buy more security software.

Low Cost of Ownership - This is our last chance. Is a reader of the WSJ interested in low cost of ownership? Probably. That is probably why they are reading the WSJ.

Is a reader, who uses Exchange, concerned about how much they are paying for Exchange?

Maybe. There has been a lot of talk about the cost, complexity, and difficulties moving to Microsoft's latest platforms, including Vista and Exchange.

We might be getting warm.

Remember, we have to speak to a problem that the reader agrees that they are suffering from. They might not be happy that Microsoft is so expensive, but the cost of the move and changing might not be worth it to them.

How much cost savings would be needed to get the reader attention?

10% cost savings?
30%?
50%

I doubt these numbers would even cause the reader to pause. It just wouldn't be worth it.

Headline grabbing Headline

But let's suppose we did some market research and determined that GroupWise could save 90% of total cost of ownership for a current Exchange organization. And let's suppose we did some more research and determined that for a company of 4,000 users, that moving to Novell GroupWise realized a cost savings of more than $4 million dollars.

Now we read the Headline

Organizations realize 90% cost reduction and $4 million in savings when adopting business-driven Linux collaboration from Novell.

Suddenly we have a story that would get someones attention. Suddenly we can talk about the customer's pain and the customer's issues, without doing any techtalk.

Show me the money

Today's environment, it is all about money. Novell is in a perfect position with GroupWise, to begin the discussion about reducing costs dramatically and realizing hard dollar costs when companies deploy their technology.

GroupWise has a strong message and a strong future. It won't take over the windows market, but there is a need, right now, in today's market, for driving down IT costs and investing in a future not tied to spiraling investments.

Richard Bliss

22 Immutable Laws of Marketing #16 The Law of Singularity

Law #16 of the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Trout and Ries states:

#16 The Law of Singularity - In each situation, only one move will produce substantial results.

This law could be called the law of the Bold Stroke or the Law of the Silver Bullet

The idea is that there is a single, most successful, bold stroke that must do to move yourself out in front of the pack and achieve substantial results.

This might be a little hard to grasp. Oftentimes we all believe that a good mix of different marketing strategies will get us the results we want. A little advertising here, a couple of webinars there, each executed well will win the day. Nope, not according to this law.

Each of your competitors is doing the same thing. A little here a little there. If you are bigger than they are you are probably giving them the opportunity to match your efforts, just a little smaller in size, which means that you really aren't gaining much of an advantage.

Let me give you an example from my own experience.

Bold Stroke At BrainShare

In February of 2003 I came on as GWAVA's VP of Marketing and was immediately put in charge of putting together the marketing effort for BrainShare...which was in 3 weeks. I had 22 days to get ready for the event.

With that short amount of time I didn't have time to do the regular stuff like I probably would have. You know, put together fliers, do a pre-event mailing, put an ad in the magazine, and have a bowl for people to drop in their business cards to win a cell phone.

Instead, I sat down and looked my goal. How to DRAMATICALLY increase the number of people coming to my booth so that I could capture the maximum amount of names. And how to do it without breaking the bank on marketing budget.

I realized that the best way would be to give away something BIG. That first year I gave away a trip for two on a Caribbean Cruise, as well as giving away $1,000 in gold coins. The theme for BrainShare that year was Pirates so these giveaways fit perfectly.

But, to make it even bigger, I didn't just make it my event, I made it the event for a dozen other vendors. I invited them to participate as well. The goal was for them to help spread the word about the giveaway. They benefited because they got to have more traffic with a bigger giveaway and I benefited for the same reason.

It was one of those single bold strokes that continues to deliver results today.

Novell's Boldest Stroke EVER

Novell understands this law of marketing as well. When Ron Hosvepian took over the reigns of Novell he was faced with the task of figuring out what to do to. How to compete in a tough market and how to differentiate Novell from everyone else. Like a General from WWII, he studied the battleground and came up with a bold plan. A single stroke that would stun the technology world.

The french proverb made famous by Patton says it well "Audacity, Audacity, Always Audacity"

Novell's bold stroke, its single move that has delivered the greatest results has been its decision to form an alliance partnership with Microsoft.

This is the Law of Singularity in action. No other action that Novell could have done would have delivered the same results. No amount of trying harder would have lifted Novell in one move to becoming the contending leader in the Linux Enterprise space.

Business-Driven Linux is the path Novell is taking and this was a perfect example of that.

Your own bold stroke

Look at your own situation. See if there is a single bold stroke that you can do with your organization that would lift it up past your competitors and set you apart. I'm sure it is there. If you want to talk to me about your ideas, drop me an email and I'm more than happy to see what you've got.

Richard Bliss

Why is the big boss so hellbent on Exchange? Posting from a GroupWise Admin

Came across a posting the other day that I thought expressed the sentiments of many of the GroupWise admins that I speak with on a regular basis. With permission, I have placed the post of speedygeo's post here in my blog.

To read his post at the source visit: http://speedygeo.livejournal.com/40930.html

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Why is the big boss so hellbent on Exchange? Methinks he is up to no good. I see this ending in one of several ways:

1. He is escorted out the door by security.
2. I find a better opportunity.

I don't like either one of those choices, but I'm somewhat limited in my choices. I've been doing email for the better part of a decade, most notably GroupWise. 'I built this place' comes to mind when I think about it. I put together a system that's for the most part there when they need it. It does have failures, but there are things out of my control. I don't control the switches that connect the servers together. If there is a hiccup, cluster services can and does pooch the services. It causes a temporary (under 2 minute) outage.

We could put everyone in Caching Mode, which emulates what you have in MS Exchange and Notes. It saves server computing power, and it saves network traffic. It puts the burden of handling certain functions (such opening messages and attachments) to the desktop system instead of having the client go out to the server, make the request, the server getting the data and pushing it down to the client to display. Also, if the service migrates to another node the clients don't see it directly. Their client will not shut down due to lack of connectivity to the post office.

In Outlook, what happens if you lose your PST/OST? You are shit out of a mailbox. GroupWise doesn't work that way, even in Caching Mode. Your mailbox blows up in Caching Mode, you can wipe it out from your desktop and recache it. We keep your email on the server at any time. You have multiple methods of access.

Having Exchange is a great way to screw productivity simply because it's got a big target painted on it. When you tie the OS in with the services it provides, you sacrifice the security. When you allow seamless integration into the client, you sacrifice security. When you allow the sort of scripting that is present in Outlook to run on your client (typically using a hack that has more rights than the user that's logged in) you sacrifice stability and security.

You can (or at least you could) view anyones email box in Exchange. Even if they've hardened the security I'm willing to bet that there is STILL a way for you to do so. With GroupWise, it's not that way. All data on the server is compressed and encrypted.

Is this pure nerdery? Yes it is. Am I preaching to a bunch of tech savvy folks? Maybe. But understand that holding a handful of Microsoft certifications (including one for MS Exchange) and exactly zero in anything Novell. I'm telling you that while there are things that make Microsoft great, there are just as many things that will make you cry as an administrator.

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Thanks to Speedygeo on LiveJournal for putting together an excellent post and for giving me permission to repost here.