Intro Chapter 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
Another of Ray's "letter maxims" was the "three S's" -- service, software and support. Since his days running Bochart Industries (just before coming to Novell), he had felt that East Asian competition was going to keep margins in data processing hardware too low to be interesting. An American company was going to make its margins on the three S's. Novell Education was spawned to bring tangibility to the service and support S's. If huge masses of people were going to use Netware, huge masses of technicians would need to know how to support it.
An important event in 1985 relating to Education was the organization of user groups -- local clubs of Netware owners or network managers who met to discuss ways of enhancing the functionality of their LANs. In June, an executive committee of "power users" convened to create an international organization tentatively referred to as Netware In Common International (NICI).* [The list of committee members shows that Netware had already found supporters in some large organizations. Founding members were Laurie Antonell from Merrill Lynch in New York City; Dennis Eccleston from the New York Power Authority in White Plains, N.Y.; Jeff Farris from Southland Corp. in Dallas; Tom Frantz from Policy Management Systems Corp. in Columbia, S.C.; Aaron Greenberg from the U.S. House Information Systems, Washington, DC; and Larry Thomas from Security Pacific Automation Co. in Los Angeles.] Groups in Toronto, New York, Chicago, and Houston were among the first to organize.
Novell committed financial and staff support to the fledgling user groups. Reid Clark was named manager of Users Group Relations, and T. Allen Lambert, a BYU graduate completing his doctoral thesis at Cornell, was hired as a consultant to act as a liaison between Novell and the user groups.
Both Clark and Lambert reported to Judith Clarke, then director of Corporate Communications. Reid was now working for his ex-wife, as a director-level manager. If he had nourished any hope of a career at Ray Noorda's Novell, this change in assignments brought him round to reality. Not only was he not wanted as an executive; it seemed he wasn't even wanted as an employee. His new job was basically an invitation to resign. Reid stayed on for two years to collect on his founder stock options.
Novell also expanded its product education programs in 1985. From August to November, "traveling seminars" were held in six major US cities. The first Dealer Authorization Program was also rolled out, with authorization given to resellers who had received product training and who had a demonstration LAN on site. In November, Novell's Corporate Communications began to distribute weekly information packages to resellers. Called LAN Information News Kits -- or LINK mailings -- these packages contained product announcements and updates, technical bulletins, third-party information, and any other literature that might be useful to resellers. "Its main purpose is to let everybody know what we're doing," said Judith Clarke. "Our products are so complex and we move so fast, they can't keep up with us. We were getting six months ahead of our resellers."
Judith was ably served by her staff of writers and promotions people. Planning for the trade shows, press conferences, and special events like the SFT announcement was handled by Anita Reece, Novell's promotions manager. Maxilyn Capell, public relations manager, was also editor-in-chief of LAN Times. Several other writers contributed articles to the tabloid and to other company projects; whether they belonged to Corporate Communications, Product Documentation, Education, Customer Service, Marketing, or even Engineering, these writers helped articulate the Novell's philosophy to the budding LAN industry. Writers on staff by the end of 1985 included Elizabeth Lowder, Barbara Hume, Jennifer Johnson, Mike Durr, Jamie Lewis, and David Doering. Additional writers, including Ed Liebing, Mike Hurcwitz and Roger White, joined early in 1986.
The SFT "Milestone II" celebration in New York City was one of those events which helped establish Novell's reputation as the host of great parties. When planning the celebration, Judith and her people figured 300 guests would constitute a good turnout. Yet over 700 resellers, distributors, users, third-party allies, media people, and other industry illuminati were invited spend an evening with Novell at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square (then only recently opened). A champagne reception was followed by a speech by Ray Noorda, a presentation of the fault tolerance concept, and dinner. After dinner, a standup comic warmed up the audience for the headline entertainment -- a concert by Ray Charles.
In his speech, Ray Noorda told the crowd, "We are an excited company." He spoke of "the four Ps" of Novell's success: perspective; performance; products; and people. In terms of perspective, Ray reminded those assembled of how tenuous Novell's hold on success was. Compared to the real players in the computer industry, Novell was just a mouse scurrying about at the feet of elephants, and it had to be careful not to get squashed. As for performance, he mentioned Novell's commitment to doing what it said it was going to do -- in terms of financial results, product development, and service. Products, obviously, are key, and Ray paid tribute to both the skill of the engineers and the vision of the visionaries, like Superset, Harry Armstrong, and Craig Burton. Finally, Ray spoke of the importance of people -- of finding them, motivating them, and giving them the opportunity to succeed.
Ray concluded by calling the Milestone II celebration "a night of euphoria." Those who knew him recognized the reference to Ray's "Five Es" speech,* where he warns companies about the danger of feeling euphoric. *(Ray likes to construct speeches around words that begin with the same letter.) "I allow for euphoria once every six months," he said.
Ray and Judith sat next to each other on the flight back to Utah. "Ray and I were talking about how it went and what we thought the follow-up program was going to be," Judith recalled. "And he says, `So, what are you going to do next, Judith?'
"I said, `What I think we need to do is some kind of vendor fair where it's just networking and nothing else.
"There had been a show held in London. It was one of the first networking shows, but the audience was really sparse. Ray said, `Well, we don't want to be like that show. Nobody goes to it because there's not that much interest in networking.'
"I said, `Yeah, but we can make it really exciting and interesting, and it's only going to cost about $500,000.'
"He said, `No way! No, no, no, no, no, no, no!'"
Of course, Ray eventually agreed to sponsor the networking show. Judith called it "NetWorld" and scheduled it for the fall of 1986. As Judith, Anita Reece, and the rest of the staff worked to launch the show, they never imagined it would evolve into the multi-million dollar, international trade show it has become.
Judith described the genesis of her idea for a trade show specifically devoted to networking. She was influenced by the lack of focus at COMDEX and by the strategy of a small software show, Softcon, which Novell participated in at New Orleans:
"I had been frustrated trying to get the attention of the press. You would go through the media at that time, and there would be a small section on networking -- maybe a page or an article. And of course it was my whole world and Novell's whole world, and we could see the growth, and we could see all these vendors that were coming to us for support and all the OEMs and all the distribution channels that had built up. It was really getting big.
"But you'd go to COMDEX, and there would be a networking booth way over here and another one way over there. They were just so far apart and lost in between the exhibits of office furniture and paper and computers and everything else there was at COMDEX.
"So I really liked the look of Softcon because it was all about software. They divided the show into groups where they had accounting software, entertainment software -- all these sections of the show. I thought, "If we could do just networking, everybody could see how much momentum there is, how many companies there are, and how many people are interested in it.
Planning for Networld began in earnest in 1986.
The fall of 1985 was a period of intense activity for Novell. The Advanced Netware/86 products began to ship, a special event was held to introduce SFT Netware, and the usual frenzy accompanied the end of the quarter and the preparations for Comdex.
Judith's Corporate Communications department was generating an enormous quantity of work during this time. Besides the planning for the SFT event and COMDEX, Judith's people were working on a corporate video (The Realities of Life), getting out weekly LINK mailings, and publishing LAN Times, three issues of which were published in 1985. By the end of the year, LAN Times was a 40-page tabloid with a press run of 30,000. [Fifty free copies were sent to each distributor and four to each reseller, in addition to a small subscriber list and trade show distribution.]
Judith supervised the production of this work in the shadow of a personal tragedy. In June 1985, she was relaxing at her Orem condominium with two of her sons. Craig Burton dropped by to visit, riding a minibike. Judith's youngest son borrowed the bike to take a spin around the block. He was hit by a car and killed.
She buried her son in a new cemetery high on the mountainside above Provo. The solitary grave is marked by a headstone and a small stone bench, and the spot affords a serenely beautiful view of Utah Lake and the valley below.
Judith's friends and colleagues say her son's death was a staggering blow; her grief visibly affected her for over a year. Always a hard worker who put in long hours, Judith began to spend even more time at the office. It was not unusual to find her working close to midnight and even later.
Intro Chapter 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21