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By Suzanna Kerridge, 14 May 2002 14:35

NEWS Novell's European president Gerard van Kemmel has admitted the company faces an uphill struggle to convince European executives to opt for its web services. Van Kemmel told silicon.com the company has low board-level recognition and credibility, as well as a non-existent share of the European consulting market. He added that Novell has traditionally appealed to the highly technical contingent within organisations. "It's a very techie audience, they're very interested by technical products but they don't have a lot of say in management groups. We want to get the message to the executives and we'll do that by pushing solutions not products," he said. Chris Stone, vice chairman at Novell, said it was an old principle that Novell has been slow to grasp. Stone left Novell in 1999 to head up his own organisation, Tilion. However, his recent return is being hailed as a significant change for Novell. "I knew three years ago that this needed to be done. But sometimes you need to look outside the looking glass to see what is going on inside clearly. "Novell doesn't have credibility with the senior level. But more than that, they don't know who we are. We've always been labelled as a networking company and that's a hard tag to shake," he added. The new approach within Europe include focusing the marketing on testimonials from customers rather than the brand which, explained van Kemmel, has not been effective. The European president does not have his sights set on a certain percentage of the market. Van Kemmel said: "In the solutions area we have a zero share. The consulting services market in Europe is huge but we have nothing. I'll know I've been successful if we have a profitable growth and customers in all the key European countries." In an attempt to claw back some market share, van Kemmel is in discussions with various consulting giants such as Cap Gemini, Deloitte and KPMG to provide services for certain vertical markets. Intensive work is also being done to woo back channel partners, many of whom felt abandoned when Novell introduced direct sales a few years ago. Van Kemmel acknowledges that Novell cannot compete to be the largest IT company in the world but he does want credibility.