The Sydney NetWare Users Group (SNUG) yesterday warned Novell it is too quiet in the face of Microsoft's marketing onslaught and must adopt aggressive new tactics in 1999.
Geoff May, SNUG's recently re-elected president, told Network World Today Novell must adopt a new marketing campaign to capture the "hearts and minds" of IT executives.
"We'd like to see as many ads for NetWare as we do for Microsoft," he said.
He described the company's popular NetWare platform as largely "invisible" in the minds of most IT managers, quipping that none of them would go into a pub and boast "we're running NetWare".
"A lot of these companies are running on NetWare but they don't know it, May said.
May agreed with suggestions Novell has long struggled with poor market visibility, despite strong growth in NetWare sales. "Novell has always been doing things quietly," he said.
May reports strong interest from SNUG members in both NetWare 5 and the vendor's directory offering, Novell Directory Services (NDS).
"Technically, (NetWare) is still the fastest file server, it's stable and versatile," he said. "The people who have tried NDS for NT have been happy with it."www.snug.net.au