Did that acquisition take Novell's eye off the enterprise software ball to the detriment of the company and its users? I can't quantify the impact of that. I'm quite sure it had an impact from my point of view. What I'm trying to do is make sure we learn from that.

How would you describe morale within Novell over the past few years? I would say it's probably been mixed. Internally, the team has been requesting the right leadership for a period of time.

Do you think Novell's users will be better served if Novell remains an independent company rather than being acquired? It's a speculative question. From my point of view, whether we're acquired or not is less relevant; what I'm focused on is making sure that we end up having the most satisfied customers that we can get.

You said this morning that the acceleration you see may include "nonorganic growth." What holes does Novell need to fill through acquisitions? The opportunity to deliver more open and better-valued management tools that take advantage of what we've enabled inside the [Suse Linux] distribution are areas where we could use some outside help.

As part of this transition, Novell has separated the chairman and CEO roles. What is your perspective on the prudence of that separation of powers from a governance standpoint? I'm a fan of it. I believe it's a good, healthy practice. It allows the chairman to always have the proper alignment of the board with the shareholders at heart.