SALT LAKE CITY — Novell's BrainShare comeback after a one-year, recession-driven absence featured new products and a promise that the software company has no intention of being taken over by one of its shareholders.
During the opening keynote Monday, chief executive officer and president Ron Hovsepian addressed what he called the "elephant in the room," saying Novell's board of directors over the weekend rejected an unsolicited bid by Elliott Associates to acquire it for roughly $2 billion.
He called Elliott's proposal "inadequate" and said it "undervalues" Novell, which is based in Massachusetts, although most of its employees work in Provo.
But while promising that Novell's day-to-day business would not be affected, Hovsepian did note that the board had called for a "thorough review of various alternatives to enhance shareholder value." That might include, he said, stock repurchases or cash dividends, collaborations, recapitalization or the sale of the company.
Although BrainShare was not held in 2009 because of the rocky economy, BrainShare 20TEN, as it's being called, has drawn roughly 4,000 attendees for four days of hands-on training, networking and socializing. And a European version will be held in Amsterdam later this year after a five-year absence, said Novell marketing officer John Dragoon, who said the conference was back by popular demand from Novell customers.
The conference's top three topics are enterprise programs with the Linux operating system, identification and access management, and virtualization and workload. Virtualization refers to partitioning a computer into "virtual" machines so it can run different operating systems at the same time. There are more than 80 demonstrations, as well as hands-on training sessions before BrainShare ends Thursday at the Salt Palace.
Hovsepian said Novell is guided by three principles: that risks and challenges be eliminated across multiple platforms; that users can move across those platforms "unimpeded and secure;" and that programs are secure, compliant and portable. People want to use tools like social networking for their work, whenever and wherever they are, using whatever device is at hand, including smart phones. All those tools have to be able to work together, he said.
Novell unveiled a preview of its Novell Pulse and promised its BrainShare audience members they'd each get a chance to test-drive the cloud-based collaboration program and share it with five friends when the preview is released.
"Cloud" refers to Internet-based programs that you don't store on your computer or device but you access through them. Pulse combines instant messaging, document sharing, social connections, real-time co-editing and enterprise controls.
Among the new or updated programs that got special nods were not only Pulse, but ZENworks 10 Configuration Management SP3 and ZENworks 10 Asset Management SP3, available March 30, and ZENworks Application Virtualization 8, which will be available in early April.
e-mail: lois@desnews.com