Contain the UNIX threat - "We should make sure the Unix focus includes Linux"

Date: 1999

Snippet
From: Orlando Ayala Sent: Saturday, February 27, 1999 7:29 PM To: Frank Clegg; Dianne Gregg; Joe Vetter; Bill Henningsgaard; Eugenio Beaufrand; Simon Witts; Steve Schiro Subject: RE: FY00 WW Initiatives

tx much.. this is good feed-back.. yesterday we had an off-site with Jeff to formalize some of this.. the meeting a couple of weeks from now is all around making this smehow final. Many of the points you raised below were discussed during this off-site.. and you will hear more about it during the mid march meeting..

- Original Message - From: Frank Clegg Sent: Thursday, February 25, 1999, 3:02 PM To: Dianne Gregg; Joe Vetter; Bill Henningsgaard; Eugenio Beaufrand; Simon Witts; Steve Schiro Cc: Frank Clegg Subject: RE: FY00 WW Initiatives

Here is a summary of the comments from my team and I. thx...f

The idea of the initiatives is great and adding a longer term focus as horizontal areas wil lsell very well with our teams. We will be a lot smarter in FY'00 about the metrics we track and chossing the top 2-3 inems to focus on.

Minor areas that need modification

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2. We should make sure the Unix focus includes Linux.

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make this as part of an initiative called Infrastructure. We really need at least another year of very strong focus on Novell. I know I will have this as a key priority for the US even if we decide it will not be a seperate initiative. Elevating it all the way to one of the @key 5 or 6@ will be essential to have everyone in the company understand we are not done with Novell. We don't want to repeat FY98 at a time Novell is rasing its ugly head again.
 * Win in the NOS space (A.K.A beat Novell): I strongly suggest not to

one that I propose as a seperate initiative because I also feel we should have a very well established view of what we will do against SUN in FY00. I also mentioned we could have this one together with the ones that you propose on NEW MArkets and/or LOB, but again the issue is to ask ourselves if that will be enough focus. I am open to have them together and drop it so we have just 5 but only provided we discuss SUN very precisly as part of the overall picture and provide our people with clear direction against this competitor.
 * Contain the UNIX threat (A.K.A beat Sun): As I said before, this is

seperate this as a very big priority for the people. I don't think we have invested enough S&M resource in Exchange since the introduction of the product and not even at that time we did anything really big. FY00 has to be the year in which we should probably over-invest in partner and MS people training, CPR, doing some really radical stuff as I believe we are at a crucial stage of the life cycle of this product and IBM also understands they are at a critical time were the thing can go great or really bad. I anticipate IBM redoubling their efforts, resources and creativity to win that battle for good in 00. We must invest seriously here. Steveb talked about 100M investment in Win200. I think we don't need all that money. I would still spend 100M but 50M in Win2K and 50M in exchange. If we agree with this, then we should form ASAP a cross-functional team in the company to ensure we come up with the best great ideas to spend this money. I hope this really happens
 * Notes! Notes! Notes! (A.K.A beat IBM and Lotus): Super critical to

(A.K.A beat piracy, get licensing right, etc): Not much more to say here. This is one that is a must, since it represents a lot of low hanging fruit specially in the US but I am sure elsewhere. Better work and integration with OEM in the field should be a key part of this.
 * Increase $$$/PC In Mid Markets (Lorgbreath+top MORG) and SMORG

was great to make this a priority. FY00 should be the year that we moved from just growing faster than Oracle to really making a dent in their core business. This is all about defining investment and the final selling model and then go for it really hard. I is great that this will accommodate for direction badly needed by the filed in areas like E-Commerce and WinDNA vs EJB and even GINA. This os for sure one of the 5.
 * Winning the LOB platform: Fairly well understood now. I think MYR

is probably the most painfull today in the field. I have expressed already my frustration as well as the GM's frustration with the lack of a "practical strategy" that the field can at least take and do a decent job with. On this one we are really at a crucial cross-road specially in International markets. We have to establish a clear view of the investment model here and how swe can bring that in the mainstream of at least the large and medium size subs. If that is not the way to go then we should also be very clear with the GM saying they should let go.. but let's be sure we kill this confusion in FY00. I am all for having this as one of the 5 key initiatives but ONLY if we figure out how to articulate to the field what the strategy means in terms of their local reality for implimentation. If that is not possible then we should tell people it will be OK to ignore that for a year (I hope we don't end up doing that as the game will get harder as time goes) so they don't get even more frustrated by our lock of clarity on this.
 * NEW markets (MSN, Web-tv, WINCE, etc) .. (A.K.A beat AOL/NSCP): This

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Full Exhibit
http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/px03036.pdf