Novell Reviews

Pros

Good work life balance, good work environment
competitive salary, work is good
management is responsive and employee are treated well.

Cons

Company is not doing well overall, long term career growth is not sure in the company.
Though people are competent but there is lack of enthusiasm because of company position in market.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to take some aggressive steps to build position in market.
Talk less and do more.
Try to leverage people capabilities properly.

Pros

Great co-workers, good benefits, good location

Cons

Low Salary, Few Career Growth options, Telecommuting flexibility varies by department, Poor interoffice communication

Advice to Senior Management

Enhance interoffice communication, increase salaries, provide consistent telecommuting options to the entire company

Pros

long term employees with lots of knowledge and hard-working.
other departments outside of operations have great work/life balance
good benefits.

Cons

not realistic with pipeline of work. too many large projects with too little infrastructure and support.
talent not empowered enough to make decisions.

Advice to Senior Management

i would recommend 360 feedback be instituted and enforced.
senior management need to work on people skills.
better onboarding process for employees to get to know novell

Pros

good set of people to work with
open work culture
opportunities for innovation.
good work life balance

Cons

lacking in product management
no focus in efforts
senior leadership unaware of ground realities in the organization
no career growth
parallel teams working on same kind of products

Advice to Senior Management

focus the teams and efforts. don't release different products for one solutions - customers are confused.

Pros

- in many positions, lots of freedom to work when you want, and, if you're good, on what you want
- good people
- some interesting technical challenges
- interesting challenge to bring Open Source spirit into the company

Cons

- many are dismotivated
- very little investment into work material (hardware, tools, books, ...) (except for one or two key teams)
- very little investment into development of yourself (in terms of education and salary)
- planning is very much for the short-term (quarter-oriented)
- payment below average
- good for a year or two, but not for longer, due to missing growth opportunities

Advice to Senior Management

don't only look on the quarter numbers, and spend some thoughts on a longer term strategy

Pros

A few good people
they pay too much (above industry average)

Cons

terrible value brand, dying company
Novell has name recognition - as "dead"
unfocused, scattered, cluttered strategy - lacking execution

Advice to Senior Management

quit trying to run the company like a huge tech giant (like IBM) - start running it as a small company. too much process, too much overlap, cost of sales way too high. Sell or consolidate sales teams and product groups. 4 such diverse tech areas CANNOT succeed at $800M.

Pros

Novell is a pretty decent place to work at mainly due to the learning potential ,the office culture and fantastic peers

Cons

The downsides to working in Novell are te recent cuts in hikes and bonuses, lack of a strong strategy and misguided management

Advice to Senior Management

The executive leadership team needs to start focusing on maintaining a solid strategy instead of revisiting it every now and then .

Pros

Benefits, compensation. Novell has excellent health benefits and works hard at trying to provide other opportunities inside of Novell, Inc.

Cons

Recently cut benefits -- 401k, tuition reimbursement. This is very discouraging when companies won't invest in their future or yours.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide ways for employees to continue education regardless of pressure to meet numbers. If you want to maintain talent then continue to cultivate it.

Pros

open atmosphere, Communication from management is clear, Flexible Timings, Adaptability to current market needs, Work is recognized, Success is celebrated.

Cons

Communication among team is not clear, Information is withheld to keep one' prominence, Wrong Feed backs about others, Not due regard to others contribution, skill, Developers & Engineers has groups which most of the time look for their prominence & highlighting and in turn the organization and department suffers as a whole.

Advice to Senior Management

Management lacks conviction and courage. Individual brilliance will always be there but the systematic approach is not there. At the development level one has to struggle to get the information.
Information is not freely flowed in the team. Novell Lacks poorly in SDLC processes and systematic approach. Management is confused and not able to devise strategy and proper response to problems / situations.
As I have said individual brilliance was /is will always be there but systematic aprroach and strategy has to be followed so that dependence on individual is lessened for information and knowledge.

Pros

Good products, good people, large customer-base. Interesting, innovative and forward-thinking product strategy.

They pay well - Novell compensation plan one of the best in the business. However you have to work extremely hard to get sales, and then even harder to get paid.

If you are prepared to learn how to 'work the system', you can succeed here. Many have built very successful careers at Novell..

Cons

Novell's Achille's heel is its brand association with its legacy. Novell should have changed its brand when it began its transformation a couple of years ago. The legacy products are no longer relevant or competitive. Customers all know Novell, but they think of it as the Netware company - and most people you meet will have had experience with Novell NW in the distant past, and usually have migrated away from Netware to Windows. This strong brand association makes selling the new stuff extremely difficult. Even though the new products are good, you need to first overcome the customer's perception of Novell.

The company is undergoing massive transformation. This means that the only constant is change. Management and sales staff are replaced like underpants. Extreme quarterly driven culture. Little regard for future sales strategies and long-term deals.

Heaps of politics. You need to know the right people and get in with them, or you'll be screwed every step of the way. Don't even bother trying to stand up for yourself. Be a drone, or be gone.

The internal processes are insane - getting anything done is nearly impossible as it requires fifty more steps than any other organisation, and all the systems are old, crap and full of rubbish data. Try working out your commission payments, submitting a request for concession, etc.

The local Australian operation is quite disconnected from headquarters, meaning that direction, marketing, strategy is nearly totally irrelevant here... although it is micro-managed remotely, and little authority is given to local management to make decisions and improve the business.

There is a total lack of trust in the organisation. Very siloed management, with multiple reporting lines meaning that middle management can get away with whatever they want and the 'drones' in the field have little say. Zero accountability from management and no ability to escalate issues, dissatisfaction, concerns, etc.

Novell is considered by the market as a dying breed, so not sure how good it looks on your resume. For technical guys, once they've been here for a couple of years and specialised their skills, then they're stuck here forever..

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to trust your workforce. In a satellite sales office, your workforce is your biggest asset. You cannot afford to keep replacing management and sales teams. The market will not bear it for much longer. You have a small window of opportunity - trust in the staff you've recruited, support them, encourage them, RESPECT them and be accountable! Responsibility for revenue is ultimately yours! Don't blame your sales force for poor performance in a near-impossible strategy.

Think - if you've replaced your sales guys, or they've left, over and over again - and things are still not right.. what is the thing that has remained constant? Perhaps try fixing that before you deflect blame like 2 year old school children..