Novell Reviews

Pros

* Promotes patent culture
* Some projects are innovative and challenging, but they are very few

Cons

* Most people I worked with lacked technical competency
* Most people taking interviews are incompetent
* Lack of challenges as most projects are in maintenance mode
* Lots of regionalism
* Unsophisticated work culture
* Incompetent management

Advice to Senior Management

* Need to look at the selection process more closely and only have right set of people in interview panel. Otherwise, a team will be formed which can be dispelled without incurring any loss.
* More structured decision making would help in keeping employees out of surprises. Releases need to be planned appropriately by taking all factors in account.
* Change the lower management. Old timers in lower management need to be assessed for having right set of skills of management.

Pros

Novell has a friendly atmosphere, some of the best benefits around, and has a good product line. The onsite cafeteria and fitness center are great and allow employees to feel more at ease. They offer a lot of time off to plan vacations through out the year.

Cons

Novell is all but sold. They got complacent years ago allowing Microsoft to become the industry standard in server technology. Many of Novell's loyal customers have jumped ship when Novell stopped following up. Sales lacks the desire to expand the company, they are too afraid of making customers upset. Although the product line is great for most businesses, there are too many variation of the products. They needed to focus on one area of the IT industry and not cater to all the needs that a customer has.

Managers are tightening their grip on everything causing stess to go up and moral to go way down. There are reports of a buy out by other companies so it wouldn't be a good career move to work for this company as the buyers most likely would take the assets and lay everyone off.

Advice to Senior Management

When Novell is sold off, make sure that those of us that are still working here are able to find work with other companies.

Pros

Good technology, good people, hard work

Cons

Wish that Management could turn around this company. Poor marketing. Newvision every year. Poor execution.

Advice to Senior Management

Sell the company

Pros

Salary, Small company, ability to participate in company's direction, access to senior management

Cons

Growth opportunities, Company leadership in the marketplace, Senior Management ability to improve the business, lack of efficient leadership

Advice to Senior Management

Trust people, let them take decisions, reduce excessive "decision by committee" environment

Pros

They do pay people who are higher up in the company more money, but unfortunately I was there as an intern.,

Cons

They don't pay their interns very well. They don't really care about their employees. There is a feeling that you could be laid off any time.

Advice to Senior Management

Take more care of your employees. They are the most important asset to your company. A place where constant fear exists is never a fun place to work.

Pros

surrounded by great people with great talents

Cons

How is it possible for a CEO to have spent over $5 billion dollars on MA - and have achieved no gain? How is it that a CEO has, quarter over quarter, yr over yr, lost margin and revenue and NOT been replaced - Fired?

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of Ron.

Pros

Great Benefits, made great friends

Cons

poor micromanagement, over worked and underappreciated

Advice to Senior Management

Let your employees do their job and they will do it good.

Pros

They gave me opportunities to learn on their dime

Cons

It was difficult to move up

Advice to Senior Management

Better task management. Lots of times I didn't get notice that something needed to be completed until a day or two before hand

Pros

I really enjoyed the coworkers and the chance I had to learn on the company's dime. It was nice that they were willing to let me learn new technologies that might or might not help the projects I was working on.

Cons

The wages weren't as competitive and sometimes I had short notice on projects due within only a couple of days.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to create a culture of trust between employee and employer because the productivity levels with people worried about losing their jobs are really low.

Pros

great place to work, great work enviornment

Cons

new products are slow to the market

Advice to Senior Management

execute on promise