61 Facts About Novell

Novell technology contributed to the emergence of local area networks, which displaced the dominant mainframe computing model and changed computing worldwide.

Novell was the second-largest maker of software for personal computers, trailing only Microsoft Corporation, and became instrumental in making Utah Valley a focus for technology and software development.

These moves did not work out, due to new technologies not fitting well with Novell's existing user base or to being too late to compete with equivalent Microsoft products, and NetWare began losing market share once Microsoft bundled network services with the Windows NT operating system and its successors.

Novell based its network protocol on Xerox Network Systems, and created its own standards which it named Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) and Sequenced Packet Exchange (SPX).

Excelan was based in San Jose, California, and they, along with a couple of prior Novell acquisitions, formed the basis for Novell's presence in Silicon Valley going forward.

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From 1988 to 1992, Novell's revenues rose almost three-fold, to $933 million a year, with about half of Novell's sales coming from North America and half from overseas.

However, Novell was diversifying, moving away from its smaller users to target large corporations and wide area networks.

Novell did later attempt to refocus with NetWare for Small Business.

Novell was quickly outgrowing its original site in Orem, with some employees forced to work in trailers.

Under Noorda, Novell embraced the notion of "coopetition", or cooperative competition.

The central idea was that whatever was good for networking in general would be good for Novell and took the form of encouraging the growth of an ecosystem composed of hundreds of suppliers of hardware and software networking products, even if some of those suppliers had products that competed with Novell's.

Novell reflected aspects of Noorda's personal background, such as his Mormon religion, which brought about what was termed "the Mormon work ethic" at Novell.

Novell was the second largest maker of software for personal computers, trailing only Microsoft.

Besides Utah, Novell continued to grow in San Jose, where many of the sales, marketing, product management, and executive functions were located.

Equally important as technological factors to NetWare's growth was that Novell did not try to hire a large sales force to do direct sales of the product, but instead sold it through a broad channel of some 13, 000 value-added resellers.

Under Ray Noorda's leadership, Novell provided upgrades to resellers and customers in the same packaging as a newly purchased copy of NetWare, but at one third the cost, which created a gray market that allowed NetWare resellers to sell upgrades as newly purchased NetWare versions at full price periodically, which Novell intentionally did not track.

Under Noorda, Novell made a series of acquisitions interpreted by many to be a direct challenge to Microsoft.

Subsequently, Novell had played a role in keeping the Federal Trade Commission investigation into Microsoft going.

Between 1991 and 1994, the Noorda-led Novell made this series of major acquisitions: Digital Research Inc, producer of DR-DOS, to compete with Microsoft's MS-DOS; Unix System Laboratories, holder of Unix operating system technology, to improve Novell's technology base versus Windows NT; Serius Corp.

Novell had already abandoned Digital Research's Multiuser DOS in 1992.

Digital Research's FlexOS had been licensed to IBM for their 4690 OS in 1993 and was utilized for the in-house development of Novell's Embedded Systems Technology, but was sold off to Integrated Systems, Inc (ISI) for in July 1994.

Novell abandoned their Corsair desktop project and in late 1994 transferred some components to Caldera, a startup funded by Noorda's Canopy Group.

The measure was intended to help Novell compete against Microsoft, which was on the verge of including networking as a built-in feature of Windows in conjunction with the Windows NT server.

Deal closed in June 1993, with Novell acquiring rights to the Unix SVR4 source base and the UnixWare operating system product.

Novell created the Unix Systems Group to contain the new business, which absorbed the Univel venture.

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In September 1994 Novell began publicly describing its plans to develop a "SuperNOS", a microkernel-based network operating system based on NetWare 4.

In one instance, Novell's Drew Major and Chorus Systemes' Michel Gien disagreed in the trade press about whether the existent Chorus technology was up to the task.

In September 1995, Novell announced the sale of UnixWare to the Santa Cruz Operation, coincident with a licensing arrangement with Hewlett Packard.

Novell purchased Software Transformations Inc, who made a cross-platform object code library that could be used to port conventional programs to a number of platforms.

In September 1994 Novell announced they would be selling the Appware Foundation product to a third party.

Novell did state that development of Visual AppBuilder would continue, and a Unix port would be following.

Novell continued to release a number of new Appware Loadable Modules.

In March 1996, it was announced that Novell had sold all rights to the AppWare technology to a new company called Network Multimedia Inc, which was headed by Ed Firmage, who had been director of AppWare marketing at Novell.

In March 1994, Novell announced that it was acquiring WordPerfect Corporation, whose primary product was the WordPerfect word processor, as well as acquiring the Quattro Pro spreadsheet from Borland.

Novell executives said that goal of the acquisitions was to build a suite of products that could be connected across the network via NetWare and UnixWare.

Novell stated in November 1995 that it was putting its personal productivity product line up for sale.

Novell did hold onto a few pieces that it had acquired from WordPerfect, most importantly the GroupWise collaboration product.

Novell did have its two largest revenue years in 1994 and 1995, generating $1.

Novell continued to have mediocre-at-best financial results during 1995 and 1996.

However some 40 million users declined to move to NetWare 4, with the result that Novell lost large amounts of possible revenue in upgrades.

The new CEO said, "Novell has been defocused by a series of acquisitions and forays that didn't work out.

Analysts commented that the primary reason for Novell's demise was linked to its channel strategy and mismanagement of channel partners under Schmidt.

In October 2000, Novell released a new product, dubbed "DirXML", which was designed to synchronize data—typically user information—between disparate directory and database systems.

In March 2001, it was announced that Novell was acquiring the consulting company Cambridge Technology Partners, founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts by John J Donovan, to expand offerings into services.

Novell felt that the ability to offer solutions was key to satisfying customer demand.

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In July 2002, Novell acquired SilverStream Software, a leader in web services-oriented applications, but a laggard in the marketplace.

In November 2003, Novell acquired Linux OS developer SuSE, which led to a major shift of power in Linux distributions.

In mid-2003, Novell released "Novell Enterprise Linux Services", which ported some of the services traditionally associated with NetWare to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) version 8.

In November 2004, Novell released the Linux-based enterprise desktop Novell Linux Desktop 9, based on Ximian Desktop and SUSE Linux Professional 9.

Lack of clear direction or effective management meant that Novell took longer than expected to complete its restructuring.

In late September 2006 Novell announced a real-time version of SLES called "SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time", based on technology from Concurrent Computer Corporation.

Novell counter-sued, claiming that the asset-transfer agreements did not, in fact, transfer the intellectual property rights SCO sought.

In 2004, Novell sued Microsoft, asserting it had engaged in antitrust violations regarding Novell's WordPerfect business in 1994 through 1996.

Novell's lawsuit was dismissed by the United States District Court in July 2012 after it concluded that the claims were without merit.

In contrast to the SCO case, here initial reaction from members of the free and open source software community over the patent protection was mostly critical, with expressions of concern that Novell had "sold out" and doubt that the GNU GPL would allow distribution of code, including the Linux kernel, under this exclusive agreement.

In December 2009, Novell announced its intention to lead the market in intelligent workload management, with products designed to manage diverse workloads in a heterogeneous data center.

Novell had long been rumored to be a target for acquisition by a variety of other companies.

Novell declined the offer, saying that the proposal was inadequate and that it undervalued the company's franchise and growth prospects.

Novell announced in November 2010 that it had agreed to be acquired by The Attachmate Group for, and planned to operate Novell as two units, one being SUSE.

Novell became a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group.

Novell was one of the first computer companies to provide proficiency certification for users of its products.