Originally Posted by
Palmless Right, you'd have to read the history if you didn't live it. Novell added seats, added servers, but average selling price was plummeting (sound familiar?) because they were losing all the high-paying customers.
They were gaining customers, at about 1/10th the rate the market was growing. They were losing market share. (Sound familiar).
They bet it all on a radical new OS. Which was late, lame, "Me too", etc. It managed to alienate the fanatical followers because it was different. Developers were confused... support NetWare, with a large, aging installed base, or the new stuff (can't recall, Intranetware 5 I think) which was leading edge but had no installed base. (Sound familiar?) Most developers decided to do neither.
Novell had made the Osborne mistake, but not to the degree RIMM has done it. That kills developer and customer interest with one move.
That's why the quarterly results coming up are expected to be SO bad, expected to make the last two awful quarters look like the good old days. Some are projecting below 10m phones, and we know the ARPU's are plummeting.