Does anyone know what is going on with Novell?  Novell snapped up PlateSpin in February 2008 for a cool $205m. At the time, PlateSpin sold two bits of software: Convert, which did conversions from physical to virtual servers (and back, as well as virtual-to-virtual conversions, which is no mean feat), and PowerRecon, which kept track of which virtual and physical machine was using what software and did metering and charge back for it. The two products were available for installation on your own gear, or on an appliance built by PlateSpin called Forge.

Presumably, elements of PlateSpin and other Novell products will end up in this Cloud Manager product.  At Novell BrainShare Europe  and Vodacom Business, announced a partnership that will integrate much of Novell’s Intelligent Workload Management portfolio including: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Platespin Virtualization and Workload Management, and Identity and Security solutions into the network provider’s cloud hosting solutions.

Markus J. Krauss, vice president of service providers at Novell EMEA said, “Cloud computing is core to Vodacom Business’s strategy and we’re pleased to be their engineering and technology solution partner for their cloud strategy. Vodacom Business is another proof point for Novell’s strategy to become the leader in the intelligent workload management marketplace. We’re looking forward to providing our partner with a more agile, cost effective and scalable way of managing, optimizing and securing cloud environment so they can pass the full benefits of cloud computing onto their customers.”

Novel has been focused on SaaS solutions. Organizations that purchase SaaS products want these solutions to provide audit tracking, single sign-on, and provisioning capabilities. More than half of these organizations would also be more inclined to purchase a particular SaaS solution if it allowed them to use their existing identity management system.

That’s what Novell discovered when they recently conducted a survey of 1,000 large to very large enterprises in the US & Canada as well as 83 qualified SaaS providers. They also discovered, however, that SaaS providers are divided on how best to meet the needs of these clients.

What does this all mean? Well, in my opinion… Novell is looking for someone to buy them and not to create an amazing product.  If they went out and actually did something with the millions that they waste on doing nothing I feel that they could create an amazing product that everyone would want.  Please let me know your thoughts!