The information superhighway connecting millions of computers around the globe is big-but it’s peanuts compared with the future in the mind of Bob Frankenberg, head of Novell Inc.
Frankenberg wants his company, the industry leader in software that connects computers via local networks, to tie together 1 billion people and the devices they use every day-cars, phones, even vending machines-by the end of the decade.
Novell’s location in a magnificent natural setting in the basin of the Great Salt Lake, at the foot of the Wasatch mountain range about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City, may be just right for hatching such an audacious vision.
Northwest Utah has become a “must” stop for many people traveling on computer-related business, partly because of Novell.
Salt Lake City was rated as offering the best climate in the nation for nurturing information-age companies, according to Forbes ASAP magazine.
Frankenberg, Novell’s chairman, president and chief executive, calls his company’s long-term strategy “pervasive computing.”
It is an ambitious undertaking, but not out of the question for a company that owns the market for network-operating systems almost as much as Microsoft dominates the market for PC operating systems.
Local area networks running on Novell software already handle much more data every day than does the Internet. Novell’s main product, called Netware, represents 60 to 70 percent of the installed base and sales of networking software, a market share roughly 10 times that of Microsoft’s Windows NT.
Microsoft, which had sales of $4.65 billion in its latest fiscal year (more than twice the sales of Novell), has long dominated desktop computer operating systems, thanks to MS-DOS and Windows. In the last few years, the Redmond, Wash., giant has taken the lead in applications programs such as word processors, spreadsheets and databases.
But so far, Microsoft has been frustrated in its desire to gain a large share of networking software.
However, Novell’s lead is hardly safe from the ambitions of Microsoft, which is increasingly the company that writes the rules for the computer industry.
Many software companies for the last dozen years have found themselves in the ring with Microsoft. And many have bitten the dust in one form or another as Microsoft moved into their territories and eventually established itself as the leader.
WordPerfect Corp., once the undisputed world leader in word processors, was bought by Novell last year as Microsoft Word took over that software category.
One of the most successful pioneers of the business, Lotus Development Corp., once dominated PC spreadsheet applications. Now its 1-2-3 is only a runner-up to Microsoft Excel. Lotus is struggling to carve out niche markets for itself, most notably with its Notes program for computer networks.
Eleven months ago, Novell hired Frankenberg, formerly head of the PC division of Hewlett-Packard, to make sure Novell doesn’t eventually wind up on the cutting-room floor.
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While overseeing the WordPerfect merger, Frankenberg decided Novell would limit itself to businesses in which it could be in first or second place.
He reorganized product groups, cut Novell’s staff by 1,750 and began to “outsource” software manufacturing functions Novell no longer wanted to do itself.
Frankenberg also moved corporate headquarters from Novell’s spartan offices in nearby Provo to WordPerfect’s former corporate campus at the base of the Wasatch range.
His long-term vision is to make possible a network for “connecting people with other people and the information they need, enabling them to act on it anytime, anyplace.”
By the year 2000, Novell wants to provide software that can connect every microchip in every device with any other chip in any other device, as if those devices were parts of a single system.
“We’re on a path not too dissimilar to the development of the automobile or electricity, where this new technology just becomes part of everybody’s daily life, something that we just take for granted,” said Frankenberg.
Frankenberg is said to have a non-stop appetite for work. And he may need it, because his vision means making software that connects not only computers but also telephones, fax machines, copiers and utility meters. Add to that vending machines, televisions, automobiles, electronic cash registers, factory automation and security systems.
“The biggest problem I have is coming up with a comprehensive list of everything that could be in such a network,” said Chris Sontag, director of marketing and product development for Novell Embedded Systems Technology.
Most modern automobiles already contain more than a dozen microprocessors to control and monitor various functions such as cruise control and fuel injection. Many of those chips “know”-or could “know”-when some part of the car needs maintenance or repair.
Frankenberg wants his company to hasten the day when those chips, perhaps at a cue from the driver, could use the car’s cellular telephone to report to the car’s mechanic.
Novell is developing a system that could connect the microprocessors in vending machines to a network that could automatically transmit information to the van of a service technician at regular intervals, whenever a machine needs more change or candy bars -or whenever the technician inquired. That will tell the technician which machines should get the highest priority for servicing.
Novell got its start in Utah in 1979 as Novell Data Systems, a tiny operation providing primitive networking hardware and software products for a now-defunct operating system named CP/M.
After several unprofitable years, the company’s major investors hired Ray Noorda in 1982 to lead the company into what it hoped would be a more promising future.
Noorda incorporated the company as Novell Inc. in January 1983, took the company out of the hardware business (a strategy many computing companies would follow for the next dozen years) and decreed that Novell would stake its future on networking software as a product for IBM-compatible personal computers.
Those turned out to be good choices, and Noorda was chairman, president and CEO until he retired at age 70 last spring.
Even though Novell had sales of nearly $2 billion in the fiscal year that ended last Oct. 31, the company’s name is hardly a household word.
Except for Novell’s WordPerfect applications, many Novell products aren’t in software stores.
Propelled by its flagship Netware operating system, Novell sales have quadrupled since 1990, when they totaled $498 million. However, profits have taken a huge tumble, from a record $249 million in 1992 to $40.7 million in 1993, after a $300 million charge for Novell’s purchase of Unix Systems Laboratories from AT&T Corp. Profits rebounded last year to $207 million.
Ironically, Frankenberg said Novell’s biggest challenge is avoiding too much focus on his long-term vision.
“There’s a thing called a `vision trap’ that you can fall into, and that’s the one thing that keeps me awake sometimes. I think the biggest danger we face is having a vision that takes five years to carry out and the temptation is to leap to the other end of it instead of meeting users’ requirements today.”