Novell and Sun as private companies?

The Register correctly points out that at current valuations and bank balances, Sun Microsystems and Novell would make a lot of sense as private companies. I don't have enough data on Sun to make a good argument there, but I've long held that Novell would benefit tremendously from a few years off the Wall Street radar.

Novell is doing much better in its Linux business, but I continue to believe that as a company it's forced to stick with dying product lines that it would happily shelve or sell but for the pressure to deliver quarterly numbers. Going private would relieve Novell of undue outside pressure, giving it room to strengthen its core business value proposition.

There are lots of benefits to being a public company, but also significant downsides. Novell would be better off as a private company in the short term, in my opinion. Now would be a good time to make it happen.

[jeromatron]

I remember a few years ago that Novell would do annual layoffs and then rehire at least half of those laid off. That seems like an odd business practice but might have to do with appeasing Wall Street. Avoiding that one practice might give them more employee loyalty and indirectly more productivity.