Surfing the High Tech Wave
Chapter Beginning.
Summary.
The March Massacre of 82.
After the massacre.
Judith Clarke on Comdex 82.
The story the booth tells.
"The time of six presidents" was a time of chaos for Novell and
all those involved. The chaos lasted from the dismissal of Jack Davis in
December 1981 until Ray Noorda's arrival as president in January 1983.
The crisis started because the company was not meeting it's original goals, and it was not profitable. The board responded to the crisis by shuffling top management again and again to find a winning combination. The name comes because during this period about six people were declared president of Novell... no one knows the actual number.
The chaos of 1982 was exciting and dramatic, new developments were happening weekly. But it weakened lines of communication, lines of authority and lines of coordination throughout this period. It was exciting, and it allowed great change to take place within Novell, but it sure was hard to do business as usual.
Many companies miss a market on the first try. The company must recover and either try again or abandon the effort and try something else. When a startup company misses it is often fatal because there are no reserves to recover and try again. Novell did not fail in 1982 because it had "deep pockets" backing it, but it was on the brink because at times those deep pockets needed a lot to convince them they weren't throwing good money after bad. By late 1982 there was a lot of doubt, and the company was on the block. Time and time again in 1982, only the promise of the LAN saved Novell from oblivion.
A time of chaos is a time for heroes. It is a time for great change; a time for people to do surprising things. In the end the heroes finally came through for Novell, but not without some cliffhangers.
Comdex 81 was a success for Novell: the printer was out and selling well;
the terminal computer was out and was one of the fanciest being shown at
show; the LAN was introduced and there was great interest in the LAN. But
following the show began Novell's most critical time of troubles: the period
of six presidents. The first person out wasn't a president. It was Jack
Davis, the founder. All through the summer the Safeguard people had been
watching at lot of money go out to Utah and little come back. The reports
back weren't encouraging: the terminal product introduction had been delayed
yet again and sales were slow. Late in the fall Dolf and Pete sent Jack
Messman to find out what was happening and to do something about it. Jack
was an ex-IBMer and a businessman, but he didn't understand this new personal
computer industry and he had no love for the mountains or Mormons of Utah.
He came; he listened to George and a couple other senior managers finger
Jack for the company's problems; he acted. Upon his return from Comdex,
Jack found himself on the street. In Messman's eyes, the incident was now
finished: he'd done the nasty job of cutting out the source of the acrimony
and now Novell should settle down and become profitable. He flew back east.
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Timeline:
Jack Messman becomes actively involved with Novell at the beginning of
1982. He functions as president until Ray assumes presidency in 1983. Subsequently
he becomes a member of the board and is active in that capacity for several
years into the mid-nineties. ------------
Jack Messman's move was meant to be a surgical strike. On George's advice
he got rid of the one man causing the problems, now it was up to George
to make things happen right. As Dolf Pere later told Jack in justification
of their decision, "Jack, we didn't have time to be referees."
But Jack, not George, had built the Novell team, and Jack had not been discredited in the eyes of those people he had brought on board. For the next five months George worked at straightening out the company, but there was a lot of grumbling while he did so.
Through the winter of 81/82 George labored diligently to solve Novell's
problems. His first act was to bring on a replacement for Jack Davis. This
man, Jim Walker, was the consultant Jack had been working with closely
for the six months previously. Jim was one of the people recommending the
switch to the COBOL accounting package when the Peachtree package hadn't
worked out. Jim began his tenure by bringing the Post Office Place employees
together for one of those rare pep talks.
The talk was a good one. He talked encouragingly about developing "a sense of closure" in what Novell did. "Follow up, make sure the customer is satisfied." he encouraged. It was a welcome change from the "don't worry about the details, they'll take care of themselves. We've got other high priority items that need to be taken care of." pace that Jack had set; people were looking forward to a lessening of the tensions that the Canova-Davis feuding had caused.
How this man's actions would compare to his words we'll never know. That weekend he flew with George to Philadelphia to present his plan to Safeguard, and the morning of the big presentation he was found dead in his motel room: heart attack.
As far as the people of Novell were concerned this was a perverse twist, but no more. As far as George was concerned this was a big setback. He never found another replacement for Jack Davis.
This was a time hallmarked by endless sales meetings. There were meetings to discuss new products and meetings to discuss the meanings of management shakeups. Roger, first as Manager of Customer Support and later as manager of the Dallas sales office recalls "emergency meetings" held monthly. Sometimes the news was good, such as when the LAN was declared ready to demonstrate. Other times it was to explain yet another management crisis.
Jack's departure gave George a "free hand" to solve the company's problems, but he was constrained by what he and Jack had already created.
The months-long run of the George-Jack feud had allowed many people in the company to take sides. George was president, but Jack was considered company founder by most of those who joined first. He had invited them in and it was his vision they had hitched their dreams to.
That winter those who sided with Jack grumbled that George was an "absentee manager"--spending much of his time and the company money jetting back and forth to Southern California.
George was further handicapped because two of his important allies in the feud were Joe Maroni and Phil Long--the fellows in charge of Manufacturing and Software Development: areas that were generating the most heat in terms of customer complaints and dashed expectations.
George had ninety days to overcome Novell's problems. The challenge proved too daunting.
By February it was clear that George's problems ran deeper than just "Jack
Davis not getting with the program." Safeguard was once again turning
it's "baleful eye from the east" upon the Utah enterprise and
it wasn't pleased with what it saw: money was still flowing out. Pete and
Dolf still couldn't understand this industry. Neither could Jack Messman.
So they fell back on their old habits and turned to one person they knew
that might understand what was going on: Jack Davis.
"In early 82 I was in Philadelphia on a business trip for Praxis [the company he became president of upon leaving Novell]. I visited Safeguard and asked Dolf, 'Do you want to know what's really happening out in Utah?'
"'Sure.' he said.
"I wrote him a 20 page 'white paper' explaining my side of the story, and I don't know if that opened his eyes or not, but three months later George was out."
Chapter Beginning.
Summary.
The March Massacre of 82.
After the massacre.
Judith Clarke on Comdex 82.
The story the booth tells.