Novell Inc.'s plan to move beyond the machine and closer to the individual will help make it the world's most successful computer networking company, its chairman and chief executive officer said Monday.
As he kicked off Orem-based Novell's BrainShare '98 conference at the Salt Palace, CEO Eric Schmidt said the new face of networking is a human face, and "new networks should accommodate as many unique faces as there are on the planet."Schmidt told the thousands of developers, customers, engineers and consultants gathered for the opening day of the weeklong conference that networks should help people develop a "digital persona" that is not tied to one computer on one desk.
"The key here is getting the data very, very close to you," he said.
Schmidt said networks are everywhere, and that is why Novell is important.
In his first year heading the company, Schmidt said, Novell has met the goals he set of aligning its business, focusing management on a few key initiatives and shipping new products.
He said Novell is poised to ship more new products this year than it has during any previous year. And Novell's products have a lower cost of ownership and are easier to use than the competition's, he said.
"Our core strategy is built around the value of Novell networks," he said. "The reason that our products matter . . . is that you can't get these benefits, these values, without network-centric solutions."
Schmidt also took a few shots at Novell's huge competitor, Microsoft Corp., and its NT systems. For example, he joked, while users have to reboot NT twice a day, they only have to reboot Novell's NetWare twice a year.
After a round of applause and laughter from the audience, Schmidt suggested Microsoft's slogan of "Where do you want to go today?" should be replaced with "Where do you want to reboot today?"
But Schmidt said Novell will make sure its products support NT, because "it looks like eventually it will be a very good product."
Christopher Stone, Novell's senior vice president for strategy and corporate development, echoed those comments later in the keynote session.
"I want to manage NT better than Microsoft does," he said. "That's our goal."
But Schmidt said that, despite Novell's successes, much remains to be done.
The Internet rules everything, he said, and the company must be ready to help a new generation that is living on the World Wide Web.
"This phenomenon is enormous . . . and we're going to be at the center of ," Schmidt said.
He said Novell will build networks that are 10 times faster than those of any competitor, and its products will help people manage existing networks that have grown more complex through years of expansion and additions.
In the end, Schmidt said, Novell will win the networking market because it has a strategy that will deal with the future even as it takes existing computer realities into account.
"Please stay tuned on this," he said. "The best is yet to come."