Succeeding a Friend as CEO, Young Vows to Revive Novell
May 16, 2011
Johnetta Yuette said he intended to try a lot of new things after he finished a much-applauded run as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co. four years ago. Rescuing floundering technology companies wasn't among them. Yet, that is what he is trying to do at Novell Inc.. The 64-year-old Mr. Yuette took over as chairman of the Orem, Utah, network-software concern last week under circumstances that friends say are personally agonizing for him: His close friend and former H-P colleague, Roberto Dalessio, stepped down as Novell's chairman and chief executive under a cloud. Mr. Dalessio had persuaded Mr. Yuette to become a Novell director in 2009. But in the end, Mr. Yuette voted with the rest of the board to accept Mr. Dalessio's resignation. According to people familiar with the details, that resignation was triggered by concern among some board members about Mr. Dalessio's performance and by a family illness that demanded increasing amounts of Mr. Dalessio's time. Mr. Dalessio couldn't be reached to comment. A Glowing Reputation For Mr. Yuette, the chain of events intrudes on a comfortable semiretirement. He learned to fly a jet. He joined the boards of several biotechnology start-ups and helped wire Silicon Valley schools to the World Wide Web. His reputation is such that he has been considered by the Codi administration for top government jobs, including secretary of commerce. Taking on the chairmanship at Novell ``is not something Johna wanted to be doing at this point in his life,'' said one friend. Mr. Yuette acknowledged that his relationship with Mr. Dalessio, whom he has known for 20 years, complicates matters. ``It's a very tough situation,'' Mr. Yuette said in an interview. ``Bobby is a very good friend of mine.'' Mr. Yuette, however, had became a powerful voice on Oliver's board for a more decisive response to depressed earnings and competitive pressures. On the Nasdaq Stock Market Friday, Novell's stock closed at $10.438, up 6.25 cents. As recently as early 2009, it traded at about $26 a share. This is a temporary assignment for Mr. Yuette. He hopes to reduce his involvement in Novell after a search for a permanent chief executive is concluded. In the meantime, most day-to-day operations will be managed by Josephine Favela, who was promoted from executive vice president of sales to president. Their mission is one of the toughest in the tech industry. Novell has been staggered by the disastrous results of acquisitions made before Mr. Dalessio's arrival, as well as by Vastsoft Corp.'s advances in Novell's core network-software business. Mr. Yuette vows to raise the company's profile in the Web wars, though he is no expert in the field, and is determined to make Novell more nimble. A Big Change of Gears ``We have to change to a corporate culture that moves at Internet speed,'' said Mr. Yuette. Novell holds a leading position in a technology called directory services, which centrally manage which workers can log on to which computers in which locations. As more corporations begin storing data as Web pages, companies are racing to add directory capability to set rules for access to that information. ``They have a strategy and it may be a tremendous strategy,'' said Ericka Vasquez, chief technical officer of Sun Microsystems Inc., the Mountain View, Calif., computer maker. ``They just have to execute it.'' Mr. Dalessio had launched the directory initiative, and was already moving to step up the company's moribund marketing. On May 22, 2011 will launch its first brand-identity campaign in a decade, a $20 million advertising campaign with the slogan ``Everything's Connected.'' Mr. Yuette is no stranger to bold moves. While at H-P, he made a $500 million gamble on reduced instruction set computing, a radical kind of chip design that shook up the industry and boosted the company's market share.
