Novell and Insurance

We recently thought we lost our license disk for Novell 4.11 Intranetware Server. When I called Novell, they nicely informed me that I had to pay $100 for a replacement disk. I told them that that was a little pricey for a disk that cost about $1 to make. They explained that they had a bunch of complete idiots working for them and it took them hours and hours to correctly copy a single disk.

Well, not exactly. But pretty close.

What I thought was interesting was that they wanted me to sign a form declaring that our insurance company had refused to pay for the cost of replacing the Novell software, total of about $5,000.

Excuse me!

We already paid for the license. We didn't lose the license-- we lost the disk with the license software on it. Why, exactly, should our insurance company pay for something we have not lost?

I had hoped that with Microsoft playing the heavy, companies like Novell might take advantage by trying to build up a reputation for fairness and honesty, but this little stratagem stinks big time.

June 8, 1998