Today Ted Haeger announced on his personal blog that he has left Novell and taken up a position at Bungee Labs, a Web 2.0 startup focused on creating a purely Web-based application development environment and deployment platform.
Ted founded the Novell Open Audio podcast which did an excellent job of humanising the image of Novell, especially within the Linux community. In general Novell's formal marketing is pathetic but thanks to Ted's leadership Novell Open Audio created an isolated bright point. The podcast provides an excellent conduit for information about Novell products minus the 'doublespeak' that normally accompanies their P.R. attempts. Whilst Ted was not too explicit over the future of the podcast I am sure if Novell management continue to support the show its co-host Erin Quill will do an excellent job as lead.
Ted's departure from Novell removes yet another prominent personality from its ranks after Jeremy Allison's recent move to Google. Together the pair expressed rare qualities for Novell figureheads; honesty and an air of confident casualness quite unlike the suited and boring party line image normally attributed to the company. Sure Miguel de Lcasa and Nat Friedman are still around but as a Linux user I would prefer they concentrate on their respective technology fields. I hope we see a couple of new up and comers stand up to take their place, unless of course Novell plan on subcontracting their P.R. out to Microsoft...