Novell's Jack Messman might be one of the last honest businessmen, unafraid to change his mind and his company's direction, but never afraid to tell the truth when he discovers it. On the other hand, he simply might not be able to remember what his company's marketing message was just a few years ago. I'm betting on the latter.

Messman gave the keynote address to the recent LinuxWorld Conference in Boston . It's been suggested, by the way, that the conference was moved from New York to Beantown at the behest of Novell, based in nearby Waltham, and after Messman and Co. plunked down a chunk of money to ease the transition from the Big Apple. Then came Messman's moment in the sun - addressing a horde of Linux enthusiasts. These Linux fans are a forgiving crowd. It was just two years ago that Messman called Linux an immature operating system because it hadn't had somebody like Novell worrying about making it robust, reliable and scalable. Swift moves on the part of Novell's public relations folks managed to salvage some good will at that time.

This time, in his keynote, Messman said that many of the benefits of Linux "are due to a common code base from the desktop to the server to the data center. Wherever it is deployed throughout the enterprise, Linux offers . . . simplified operations as platform variations decrease. The likelihood of interoperability issues is greatly diminished. And system-wide improvement increases. With a common code base when an update or enhancement is applied to that base, all levels within the enterprise reap the benefits."

Well, if you remove the word Linux, and substitute "Windows," it's just as valid a statement. It's the very argument that Microsoft used to wrest control of the network market from Novell a dozen years ago. The problem, for Novell, arises because for at least that long the company's marketing machine has tried to drum into users' brains the idea that servers and desktops are very different in their operation and needs, and that each requires an operating system optimized for its duties.

As one company publication ("Novell Developer Notes," January 1999) put it: "A dedicated network operating system is better for hosting the network and far more efficient than a general-purpose operating system."

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