Novell Reviews

Pros

employees cooperate well, share passions easily
variety of technical products, also people
amazing patent, innovation culture
real customer issues, bugs

Cons

Things might look good at microscopic level for some time, depending one's capability. Later on, must have special effort, set high personal technical targets (not apparently needed for work, nor revealed to manager) for yourself as most of the work, once mastered, does not mandate anything relatively significant, well, in nearly all cases. This is the problem for many.

Advice to Senior Management

With so many passionate, competent people worked, working for decades, given the innovation culture, it is unfortunate, no great ground braking final product has emerged from Novell IDC to set a more better culture. Clear problem with management's priorities.

Must have open accountability to feedback, concerns raised. Else will loose trust on certain matters even in case they might be/are addressed. Also there should be a way to discuss, not just raise, the issues in an anonymous manner.

Pros

- The privilege of working with some very talented people (no longer there)
- Novell was once a technological icon
- Efficient internal processes, systems and pleasant work environment

Cons

Novell has struggled to find its soul (and top line growth) for over a decade. Not surprisingly, its many strategic shifts and cost-cutting focus (leading up to its capitulation to private equity / fire sale to Attachmate in 2011) have sealed its technological mediocrity.

Advice to Senior Management

All that remains of Novell's hollowed out carcass are a few politically savvy sycophants and their lowly paid minions. Bring in visionary product engineering and marketing leadership talent, if you wish to build value.

Pros

Beautiful offices and campus, convenient on-site gym, bank and cafeteria, opportunity for solid business experience, great opportunity for exposure to international business, home to some of the hardest workers with whom I've had the pleasure to be associated

Cons

Lack of communication, executives are focused on personal goals rather than leadership and building a good culture, total lack of valuing of employees as an asset, due to international presence, MANY work hours expected of salaried employees including late nights and early mornings and all normal hours in between, in-fighting between executives at the various sites across the globe, an archaic sense that in the relatively smaller Provo, Utah market employees have no other viable employment options and Novell is the only "game in town" and consequently employees are not treated as they should be, there is a surprising number of under-qualified upper management

Advice to Senior Management

Value your employees and verbally express thanks for their hard work, communicate more openly, foster unity among various departments, develop a productive culture

Pros

Nice campus
Nice cafeteria
Nice exercise room
lots of time off, didn't need to beg for permission
good location next to free way
excellent benefits

Cons

Company was bought out by Attachmate, Attachmate laid off hundreds of employees
company can't compete and therefore is not growing
moral is way down
Dead end job no way to move up
No raises in 4 years
If managers don't like you, even if you do a good job, they will lower your bonus at the end of the year.
very political. some people got promotions playing to manager's egos while undermining their coworkers performance.
When things got tough, managers would only look out for themselves and threw the people on their team under the bus.

Advice to Senior Management

Attachmate should get rid the rest of the managers and then sell off the rest of Novell. The company isn't worth keeping around since Novell can't compete.

Pros

Flexible with work schedule; trust your work integrity; friendly, competent colleagues, good benefit package.
They expect you to get your work done, but don't micro-manage if you work at home, office, at night, etc. With children, it is very important to have the flexibility to see class plays, go to doctor appts, etc.
Colleagues are good at their work and there is a good collaborative environment.

Cons

Pay is a bit under market and no/small pay increases; no hard push for growth or huge change (could also be considered a Pro)

Advice to Senior Management

With new owner/management, look to reward the performers and maintain the incredible collaborative spirit to grow business and maximize the growth and profit potential of the company.

Pros

Worked on a very dynamic team with intelligent and progressive thinking managers and employees. Team members were all very willing to work together to accomplish goals, were open to new ways of doing things. The team was always striving to improve and work toward aggressive goals.

Cons

Cons include those typical working with a large company that has been around a while. Some of those include: red tape to get projects approved, dealing with old and dates processes and technologies, inability to think outside the box and try new things.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't be afraid to scrap old projects that are consuming resources and not meeting objectives. Invest in the resources to get the job done right. Trust your managers to make decisions.

Pros

Great work environment - open communication atmosphere, bright people; I felt like I had a voice at all levels of the organization. New management team from Attachmate seems to show leadership while also showing ability to consider new ideas.

Cons

Going through reorganization - some chaos as the evolution happens. Will take some time for things to get back to a new "normal".

Pros

Overall good environment for growth and learning. Nice friendly teams with people willing to share everything they know of.

Cons

Management needs to be well directed towards the future of the company then just the yearly targets. More transparency would help in having a better work culture.

Pros

It is not uncommon to meet Novell employees with 10 or more years with the company, this speaks well of the way Novell treats its employees.
Novell places strong emphasis on hiring top talent and represents a great opportunity to learn from the best of the best in your field.
Novell is well recognized in the industry as a leader in product development and for its global network of partners.

Cons

Acquisition by Attachmate will affect corporate culture. I expect the resulting company will inherit some good things from Novell but at this moment it is uncertain what will happen exactly. This also applies to product roadmap.

Advice to Senior Management

The transition following the acquisition by Attachmate seems to be leaving out many critical processes, with senior managers disregarding day to day operations and employees confused and uncertain about what they need to do.

Pros

good oppurtunities especially for freshers

Cons

monetary benefits are not very good. The pay scale is less compared to the same range of companies
no proper recognition for work half the times

Advice to Senior Management

The company has to increase the benefits it provides to employees. main things are maintaining a proper pay scale and giving proper benefits to them.