With significant departures of a top manager, channel chief, and more key staff, Novell's future in the UK does not look promising

Novell is shaking up its business and partner strategy in Europe. The VAR Guy reached out to Novell Chief Marketing Officer (and Channel Chief) John Dragoon for his thoughts. Here's the scoop.

I'm set to interview Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian and Chief Marketing Officer/Channel Chief John Dragoon at the Novell BrainShare conference in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 22. Here are five key questions for Hovsepian and Dragoon, with the emphasis on the future of Novell and SUSE Linux.

For the first time in five years Novell is hosting a BrainShare conference for EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) partners and customers. Novell Chief Marketing Officer and Channel Chief John Dragoon says the event is sold out. Here are the details.

Novell Chief Marketing Officer John Dragoon popped up in a surprising location this week. Dragoon, who also serves as Novell’s channel chief, wrote a column on Forbes.com. In it, Dragoon declares consumers will be the big winners in the operating system battles between Apple, Google, Microsoft and Linux. Is Dragoon dropping hints about an expanded Novell desktop Linux push? Here's the scoop.

Next up, Novell will turn its SUSE Linux attention to enterprise developers, according to Novell Channel Chief John Dragoon

In a surprise move, Pat Bernard is leaving the company

Novell BrainShare started March 21 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The company is gradually winning back channel partners like VARs and systems integrators, thanks to SUSE Linux. But so far, Novell doesn't seem to have a compelling story for the fastest growing portion of the channel -- managed services providers (MSPs). The big question: Do MSPs care about Novell?

Novell and Tech Data have inked a partnership to promote SUSE Linux and open source application appliances to VARs and channel partners. In some (but not all) ways, the partnership counters recent work by Red Hat and Synnex (co-founders of the Open Source Channel Alliance). Here’s the scoop.