There has been some talk about novell and open source around the blogsphere , below i have excerpts from different blogs on this topic.

One really interesting company to watch is Novell. Here is a billion dollar software company that is literally betting its future on open source. It is not just releasing existing software to open source, but rather adopting open source as the core of its future business. If Novell succeeds at bringing open source to its customers and building a business around services, it will send a powerful message to the entire industry. If it does not succeed, it will offer some equally powerful lessons on how the road into the mainstream should be traveled.

via OpenSource Strategies Blog

Novell Gaffe Costly - On restatement filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Novell incorrectly classified $6 million of Linux maintenance revenue as license revenue in its first-quarter financial report, released last week. - To be sure, the money simply moves from one bucket to another, but because license revenue is a key indicator of new business, while maintenance revenue reflects ongoing payment from current clients, the shift is disturbing.

Prudential Securities analyst Brent Thill downgraded the stock to underweight from neutral, saying "this causes us to wonder if there are deeper issues that are not apparent on the surface."

Similarly, Mark Murphy of First Albany said "the restatement should cause skepticism around the way Novell conveys its unaudited Linux results in the future," and he is concerned that "the leading indicator of Novell's business -- software license revenue -- is caving in faster than previously thought, suggesting more severe market-share losses with NetWare and other products." (Neither Prudential or First Albany has an investment-banking relationship with Novell.) - On this article Open Source strategies has an interesting post titled - "Do Wall Street financial analysts understand open source? "

Novell & Open Source Ambitions
Martin Tobias writes about his conversation with Jack Messman , CEO of NOVELL and notes two important points:

• 1. Most of his staff would say that Google is their #1 competitor, although he would prefer Microsoft. Jack believes Google could whip up an OS anytime they wanted.
• 2. Open source stack support companies like Spikesource (KP funded) and SourceLabs (Ignition funded) will have a tough time getting to market as Novell (through Suse) and others (Redhat) will just implement partner programs and the need will be gone. Jack argues Vendor consolidation around trusted brands. Martin says, one can argue about if Novell makes that cut, but would tend to agree in principle.