Novell layoffs and outsourcing open source
Novell has been moving much of its Groupwise and other Workgroup development to India for some time, so today's news that the company has laid off 250 US workers is not a big surprise. What is, however, is how the company is whittling down its Provo, Utah operations, as it has for the past few years.
Once management moved to Boston, it was just a matter of time until management would want to bring the company with it. While I was at Novell, I watched the Waltham office grow while the Utah office shrank little by (very) little.
It's a shame as Novell has a great engineering team, much of which is based in Utah. It has simply lost its way at times on market trends, execution, and product management.
I wish the people who have lost their jobs luck and courage. I've seen family members in this position and it's not pleasant. My old offer still stands, however: I will gladly help any current or ex-Novellites find better work elsewhere.
The open-source market is booming, and open source is something you can't outsource, because open source is about people, not bits.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
