When Craig left, Novell as a whole was shaken, but organizationally there was little impact. Craig had only a handful of people working directly for him, and they scattered to other departments before the final blow fell. Mark Calkins assumed his product-specifying functions, Daryl Miller assumed his communications functions, and in the new Novell, no one needed to assume his visionary functions.
Judith, unlike Craig, had built a substantial organization under her. She had assembled the MarComm (marketing communications), Trade Show, and Publications departments. Publications had staffs for the LAN Times, NetWare Technical Journal, and Selling Red—over fifty people in all.
In Ray’s eyes these functions were all too large for a Novell which no longer needed to educate the world on what a LAN was, so the challenge was how to best get rid of them. The same close-knit community that supported Ray in his crisis with Craig and Judith would turn on him if he just hacked the department off cold, and he knew it. He once commented, “Laying off people in Utah is tough. When I had to let 20 people go from Manufacturing I got a call from the governor.”
Opportunity knocked when McGraw Hill contacted Ray about buying the LAN Times—they wanted a publication to compete in this newly emerging industry. Ray sat down with their representative and came away smiling. They would take not only the LAN Times but the rest of Novell’s Publication Group and pay him good money to boot! Once more Ray had proved his business acumen.
For Ray, Craig, and Judith, Novell was their baby. They’d made it happen, and they’d made it happen together. For six years they’d trusted each other, worked together, spilled blood and tears together, and their baby had become something very special: A company that had made an industry.
This baby had generated a lot of money, a lot of pride, and a lot of good times, and breaking up that special relationship was no easier than breaking up any other special relationship.
Those close to Ray have said that the breakup aged him. Those close to Craig and Judith have commented on their bitter feelings towards how things turned out.
But given what was at stake, it went very smoothly indeed. Lawsuits were threatened but never materialized. Novell continued to grow under Ray’s tutelage. Craig and Judith got married in the summer of 1989 in a picturesque wedding at their new home in the foothills near Little Cottonwood Canyon—home to some of Salt Lake’s best ski resorts. They went on to found Clarke Burton Corporation as a way of offering their expertise to the industry at large.
Perhaps in this case money solved some problems: Novell was still profitable. Novell continued to grow. Boat rocking by either side would have threatened that. Perhaps, in this case, money and success bought peace.