Shortly after accepting the position as president of Novell North America last July, Toronto-born Susan Heystee had to quickly switch gears and turn her continent-wide responsibility into one that covered the western hemisphere.
Novell decided to throw the Latin American regions, which include growing countries such as Brazil and Mexico, into her lap under the umbrella of Novell Americas. The move is indicative of a company that has had to reinvent itself several times during the past decade.
Historically a network operating system vendor, today it is firmly committed to being an identity access management and open source player. Heystee, who graduated from the University of Waterloo and still lives in Canada, said Novell’s new position has been very successful with a year-over-year growth rate of 287 per cent.
CDN recently discussed her new role along with how she is furthering the Linux movement in Canada and Latin America.
CDN: What are Novell’s goals for this year, specifically in the enterprise and in the channel for Canada?
Susan Heystee: I would cover the channel within the enterprise. We really are taking a leadership position in identity and access management. We are in our third generation release with IDM 3 being released. This is our main suite offering in our identity solutions. We see the opportunity to take a lot of the work we have done with (existing) customers, in addition to new customers who are interested in working with us in this area. The goal for this year is to be recognized and to increase our market position in identity and access management in Canada. Second, we have been doing a lot of work in the Linux and open source area, and there has been good adoption globally across 2,000 customers including state, local and private sector. Our objective there is to increase and grow our business. Clearly we have seen growth into that business year over year. It was 287 per cent growth last year and our objective is to see that grow even further. There is also a list of global partners that play a part in our open source business in Canada as well. They are IBM, HP, Dell, Unisys and SGI. Those partnerships are very important and provide a key aspect of our go to market here in Canada.
CDN: If you had to choose one area that needs improvement what would it be?
SH: I will answer that in two different ways. From a solution perspective, it is growth of really two market areas: Linux and open source business and our identity and resource management business. These are markets that are growing. Those are businesses where we have seen strong year on year growth. It is key for us to continue that momentum. On a broader base, taking it to a higher level, Novell has been known in the market for secure network services and Novell today is a lot more than that. We are an infrastructure software company that provides solutions for the open enterprise. A key element for us is really changing and promoting Novell’s relevance of who we are today in the open enterprise. For some companies they think about Novell for its secure network services. We are a lot more than that today. This is an exciting time for us. We are building on our whole business around infrastructure that we have been known for more than 25 years. We are growing in major new areas in the market that are relevant today. Identity and security is really relevant today. Having an open source alternative is top of mind for CIOs as they look for more flexibility in their infrastructure and lowering their total cost of ownership. The more we change and really move that forward I think is going to be key for us.
CDN: Novell is firmly in Linux’ corner. However, while there’s no dispute about the growth of Linux, Canada’s top solution provider, NexInnovations, does not consider Linux to be a strong solution for Canadian customers. What do you make of that?
SH: Without commenting on this specific statement, the Linux market is growing in Canada. That seems to be a clear indication of both the demand and the adoption of Linux as an operating environment and open source as a platform. We are seeing that increased demand. This was quite widely published by many analysts. In terms of a firm’s adoption of Linux and open source it is determined on a case by case basis, but based on what we are seeing in that market all of the major application and enterprise software companies are embracing Linux.