Explaining the thinking behind its corporate reshuffle (CI No 2,331), Novell Inc’s Unix Systems Group stresses that Kanwal Rekhi has been removed from day-to-day concerns over Unix Systems Group so he can focus on pulling together an overall corporate product strategy that, among other things, will knit NetWare and UnixWare more closely together. Novell is not being perceived as an enterprise player and it desperately needs to fix that, it says. Vice-president Bob Davis was moved from Unix Systems Group marketing to corporate marketing for the same reasons. Meanwhile, while Unix Systems Group says it sold 50,000 copies of UnixWare in the first year of marketing, insiders think the number is actually closer to 35,000, with many of those the result of a few major contracts: the US Treasury is said to have taken 5,000 – worth $2.4m, under the TMAC contract; Chrysler Corp took another 5,000 copies, and the reason Hewlett-Packard Co signed for UnixWare on its Intel Corp boxes is said to have been to enable it to edge NCR Corp out of a deal at Swiss Bank Corp, which wanted UnixWare on its clients.
