Novell
Encyclopedia
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services
company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group
. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare
; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks
; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise
and Novell Vibe.
Novell was instrumental in making the Utah Valley
a focus for technology and software development. Novell technology contributed to the emergence of local area network
s, which displaced the dominant mainframe computing
model and changed computing worldwide. Today, a primary focus of the company is on developing open source
software for enterprise
clients.
(ERI) in Provo, Utah. Dennis Fairclough
, Drew Major
, Dale Neibaur and Kyle Powell left ERI and took with them the experience and technology to found Novell. Fairclough was the member of the original team that started Novell Data Systems. Major, Neibaur and Powell went on to form SuperSet
Software. Fairclough was the original founder of Novell, who was dismissed when Ray Noorda came to Novell. Major, Neibaur and Powell continued to support Novell through their SuperSet
Software Group.
At ERI, Fairclough, Major, Neibaur and Powell worked on government contracts for the Intelligent Systems Technology Project, and gained an important insight into the ARPANET
and related technologies, ideas which would become crucial to the foundation of Novell.
The company began in 1979 in Provo, Utah
as Novell Data Systems Inc., a hardware
manufacturer producing CP/M
-based systems. It was co-founded by George Canova, Darin Field, and Jack Davis. Victor V. Vurpillat brought the deal to Pete Musser
, chairman of the board of Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., who provided the seed funding. The micro computer that was produced by the company was comparatively weak against performance by competitors. In order to compete on systems sales Novell wrote a program to link more than one to operate micro computer together. The company initially did not do well, and both Davis and Canova left the firm. The Safeguard board then ordered Musser to shut Novell down. Musser contacted two Safeguard investors and investment bankers, Barry Rubenstein and Fred Dolin, who guaranteed to raise the necessary funds to continue the business as a software company. Novell's networking program could work on computers from other companies. They, along with Jack Messman, interviewed and hired Raymond Noorda. The required funding was obtained through a rights offering to Safeguard shareholders, managed by the Cleveland brokerage house, Prescott, Ball and Turben, and guaranteed by Rubenstein and Dolin.
In January 1983, the company's name was shortened to Novell, Inc., and Raymond Noorda became the head of the firm. Later that same year, the company introduced its most significant product, the multi-platform network operating system
(NOS), Novell NetWare
.
CPU supporting 6 MUX
ports per board for a maximum of 4 boards per server using a star topology with twisted pair
cabling. A network interface card (NIC) was developed for the IBM PC industry standard architecture
(ISA) bus. The server was using the first network operating system
(NOS) called ShareNet. Later, ShareNet was ported to run on the Intel platform and renamed NetWare. The first commercial release of NetWare was version 1.5.
Novell based its network protocol on Xerox Network Systems (XNS), and created its own standards from IDP and SPP, which it named Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) and Sequenced Packet Exchange
(SPX). File and print services ran on the NetWare Core Protocol
(NCP) over IPX, as did Routing Information Protocol
(RIP) and Service Advertising Protocol
(SAP).
NetWare uses Novell DOS (formerly DR-DOS
) as a boot loader. Novell DOS is similar to MS-DOS
and IBM
PC-DOS
, but no extra license for DOS is required; this came from the acquisition of Digital Research
in 1991. Novell had already acquired Kanwal Rekhi
's company Excelan
, which manufactured smart ethernet
cards and commercialized the internet protocol TCP/IP, solidifying Novell's presence in these niche areas.
It was around this time also that Ed Tittel
of HTML
For Dummies notoriety became involved with Novell. Tittel took up various positions within the newly acquired Excelan, becoming national marketing manager for Novell, before being named as Novell's director of technical marketing.
Novell did extremely well throughout the 1980s. It aggressively expanded its market share by selling the expensive ethernet cards at cost. By 1990, Novell had an almost monopolistic
position in NOS for any business requiring a network.
With this market leadership, Novell began to acquire and build services on top of its NetWare operating platform. These services extended NetWare's capabilities with such products as NetWare for SAA, Novell multi-protocol router, GroupWise and BorderManager.
In June 1993, the company bought Unix System Laboratories
from AT&T
, acquiring rights to the Unix
operating system, seemingly in an attempt to challenge Microsoft
. In 1994, Novell bought WordPerfect
, as well as the Quattro Pro
from Borland
. These acquisitions did not last. Novell in 1995 assigned portions of its Unix business to the Santa Cruz Operation. WordPerfect and Quattro Pro were sold to Corel
in 1996. Novell DOS was also sold to Caldera
in 1996.
As Novell faced new competition, Noorda was replaced by Robert Frankenberg
in 1994, and was followed by several CEOs who served short terms. One of Novell's major innovations at the time was Novell Directory Services (NDS), now known as eDirectory. Introduced with NetWare v4.0. eDirectory replaced the old Bindery server and user management technology employed by NetWare 3.x and earlier.
In 1996, the company began a move into internet-enabled products, replacing reliance on the proprietary IPX protocol in favor of a native TCP/IP stack. The move was accelerated when Eric Schmidt became CEO in 1997 and then Christopher Stone was brought in. The result was NetWare v5.0, released in October 1998, which leveraged and built upon eDirectory and introduced new functions, such as Novell Cluster Services (NCS, a replacement for SFT-III) and Novell Storage Services (NSS), a replacement for the Traditional/FAT filesystem used by earlier versions of NetWare. While NetWare v5.0 introduced native TCP/IP support into the NOS, IPX was still supported, allowing for smooth transitions between environments and avoiding the "forklift upgrades" frequently required by competing environments. Similarly, the Traditional/FAT file system remained a supported option.
However, by 1999, Novell had lost its dominant market position, and was continually being out-marketed by Microsoft
, which gained access to corporate data centers by bypassing technical staff and selling directly to corporate executives. Microsoft worked to make NetWare look second place with Windows 2000
features such as Group Policy. Microsoft's GUI
was also more popular and looked more modern than the character-based Novell interfaces. With falling revenue, the company focused on net services and platform interoperability. Products such as eDirectory and GroupWise were made multi-platform.
In October 2000, Novell released a new product, dubbed DirXML, which was designed to synchronize data, often user information, between disparate directory and database systems. This product leveraged the speed and functionality of eDirectory to store information, and would later become the Novell Identity Manager
and form the foundation of a core product set within Novell.
In July 2001, Novell acquired the consulting company, Cambridge Technology Partners
, founded in Cambridge, MA by John J. Donovan, to expand offerings into services. Novell felt that the ability to offer solutions (a combination of software and services) was key to satisfying customer demand. The merger was apparently against the firm's software development culture, and the finance personnel at the firm also recommended against it. The CEO of CTP, Jack Messman, engineered the merger using his position as a board member of Novell since its inception and soon became CEO of Novell as well. He then hired back Chris Stone as vice chairman and CEO to set the course for Novell's strategy into open source and enterprise Linux. With the acquisition of CTP, Novell moved its headquarters to Massachusetts
.
In July 2002, Novell acquired SilverStream Software, a leader in web services-oriented application, but a laggard in the marketplace. The business area called Novell exteNd
contains XML
and Web Service
tools based on Java EE.
, a developer of open source
Linux
applications (Evolution
, Red Carpet and Mono
). This acquisition signaled Novell's plans to move its collective product set onto a Linux kernel
.
In November 2003, Novell acquired SuSE, a developer of a leading Linux distribution
, which led to a major shift of power in Linux distributions. IBM
also invested $50 million to show support of the SuSE acquisition. Within the openSUSE
project, Novell continues to contribute to SUSE Linux. openSUSE can be downloaded freely and available as boxed retail product http://www.open-slx.com/doku.php with formal support http://www.open-slx.com/doku.php?id=support.
In mid-2003, Novell released "Novell eNterprise Linux Services" (NNLS), 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 v9. This product was based on Ximian Desktop and SUSE Linux Professional 9.1. This was Novell's first attempt to get into the enterprise desktop market.
The successor product to NetWare, Open Enterprise Server
, was released in March 2005. OES offers all the services previously hosted by NetWare v6.5, and added the choice of delivering those services using either a NetWare v6.5 or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
v9 kernel. The release was aimed to persuade NetWare customers to move to Linux.
In June 2006, chief executive Jack Messman and chief finance officer Joseph Tibbetts were fired, with Ronald Hovsepian
, Novell's president and chief operating officer, appointed chief executive, and Dana Russell, vice-president of finance and corporate controller, appointed interim CFO.
hypervisor. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (popularly known as SLED) featured a new user-friendly GUI and XGL
-based 3D display capabilities. The release of SLE 10 was marketed with the phrase "Your Linux is Ready", meant to convey that Novell's Linux offerings were ready for the enterprise. In late September 2006 Novell announced a real time version of SLES called SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time (SLERT) based on technology from Concurrent Computer Corporation
.
announced a joint patent agreement to cover their respective products. They also promised to work more closely, to improve compatibility of software, setting up a joint research facility. Executives of both companies hope such cooperation will lead to better compatibility between Microsoft Office
and OpenOffice.org
and better virtualization techniques.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
said of the deal, "This set of agreements will really help bridge the divide between open-source and proprietary source software."
The deal involves upfront payment of $348 million from Microsoft to Novell for patent cooperation and SLES
subscription. Additionally, Microsoft will spend around $46 million yearly, over the next 5 years, for marketing and selling a combined SLES/Windows Server offering and related virtualization solutions, while Novell will pay at least $40 million yearly to Microsoft, in the same period.
One of the first results of this partnership was that Novell adapted the OpenXML/ODF Translator for use in OpenOffice.org
.
community over the patent protection was mostly critical, with expressions of concern that Novell had "sold out" and of doubt that the GPL would allow distribution of code, including the Linux kernel, under this exclusive agreement.
In a letter to the FOSS development community on November 9 2006, Bradley M. Kuhn
, CTO of the Software Freedom Law Center
described the agreement as "worse than useless." In a separate development the chairman of the SFLC, Eben Moglen
, reported that Novell had offered cooperation with the SFLC to permit a confidential audit to determine the compliance of the agreement with the GPL (version 2). Richard Stallman
, founder of the Free Software Foundation
, said in November 2006 that changes coming with the version 3 of the GPL will preclude such deals. When the final revision of the third version of the GPL license was decided, the deal between Microsoft and Novell was grandfather
ed in. A new clause will let companies like Novell distribute GPLv3 software even if they have made such patent partnerships in the past, as long as the partnership deal was made before March 28, 2007 (GPLv3 Section 11 paragraph 7 ).
On November 12 2006, the Samba
team expressed strong disapproval of Novell's announcement on November 2 2006 and asked Novell to reconsider. The Samba team includes an employee of Novell, Jeremy Allison
, who confirmed in a comment on Slashdot
that the statement was agreed on by all members of the team, and later quit his job at Novell in protest.
In early February 2007, Reuters reported that the Free Software Foundation
had announced that it was reviewing Novell's right to sell Linux versions, and may even ban Novell from selling Linux, because of an agreement. However Eben Moglen
later said that he was quoted out of context. He was explaining that GPL version 3 will be designed to block similar deals in the future. Currently, Novell is not violating the GPL version 2 but the GPLv3 prevents such deals being made in the future. Microsoft has released two public covenants not to sue for the infringement of its patents when using Moonlight. The two covenants require the implementation to not to be released in GPLv3 .
(IWM). The company's products will enable customers to manage diverse workloads in a heterogeneous data center.
Novell announced in November 2010 that it had agreed to be acquired by Attachmate
for $2.2 billion. Attachmate plans to operate Novell as two units, one being SUSE
. As part of the deal, 882 patents
owned by Novell are planned to be sold to CPTN Holdings
LLC, a consortium of companies led by Microsoft
and including Apple
, EMC
, and Oracle
. According to Novell's SEC filing, the patents "relate primarily to enterprise-level computer systems management software, enterprise-level file management and collaboration software in addition to patents relevant to our identity and security management business, although it is possible that certain of such issued patents and patent applications read on a range of different software products". Additionally, the future owner anticipates no change to the relationship between the SUSE business and the openSUSE project as a result of this transaction.
On 27 April 2011, Novell announced that the merger with Attachmate had been completed, with Attachmate paying $6.10 per share in cash to acquire Novell. Immediately prior, Novell completed the sale of "certain identified issued patents and patent applications" to CPTN Holdings LLC for $450 million in cash. Novell is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group, the parent company of Attachmate Corporation.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that in order to proceed with the first phase of their acquisition of certain patents and patent applications from Novell Inc., CPTN Holdings LLC and its owners altered their original agreements to address the department's antitrust concerns. The department said that, as originally proposed, the deal would jeopardize the ability of open source software, such as Linux, to continue to innovate and compete in the development and distribution of server, desktop, and mobile operating systems, middleware, and virtualization products.
With regard to licensing the patents:
Concurrent with the closing of the acquisition, some of Novell's products and brands were transferred to another Attachmate Group business units, NetIQ, and the SUSE Linux brand was spun off as its own business unit. The fourth business unit, Attachmate
, was not directly impacted by the acquisition.
On April 2011, Attachmate announced layoffs for the Novell workforce, including hundreds of employees from their Provo
Utah Valley
center, raising questions about the future of some open source projects such as Mono
.
In December 2009, Novell reorganized its product development business units into two Business Units: Security, Management, and Operating Platforms; and Collaboration Solutions.
The Collaboration Solutions Business Unit is based around providing applications for office productivity products:
The Security, Management, and Operating Platforms Business Unit is based around the remainder of Novell's products (formerly separated into Systems and Resource Management, Identity and Security Management, and Open Platform Solutions business units):
Novell are founding members of the Open Invention Network
, a group of companies that acquires patents, with the aim to protect free and open source software against the threat of patent infringement cases.
Novell also hosts support forums covering all of their products including SUSE Linux Enterprise, GroupWise, ZENworks and NetWare. Novell offers users both HTTP and NNTP access to the support forums and a search option. Whilst Novell encourages the use of these forums, it does not officially monitor these forums. The forums are maintained by SysOps that have a demonstrated competency with the various products and volunteer their time to try and help the wider community.
Novell maintains a number of wikis with up-to-date information on a number of its products. For instance, as new NetWare service packs are released the NetWare wiki is updated with tips and known issues with the service packs. In some cases, the service packs themselves will have their own wiki with information added from feedback provided in the support forums.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...
company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group
Attachmate
Attachmate Corporation is a software company owned by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, and Thoma Cressey Bravo. Attachmate focuses on terminal emulation, legacy modernization, managed file transfer, and enterprise fraud management software. Attachmate Corporation...
. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare
Novell NetWare
NetWare is a network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, with network protocols based on the archetypal Xerox Network Systems stack....
; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks
Novell ZENworks
Novell ZENworks, a suite of software products developed and maintained by Novell, Inc. for computer systems management, aims to manage the entire life cycle of servers, of desktop PCs , of laptops, and of handheld devices such as personal digital assistants . ZENworks recently included full disk...
; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise
Novell GroupWise
GroupWise is a messaging and collaborative software platform from Novell that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The platform consists of the client software, which is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and the server...
and Novell Vibe.
Novell was instrumental in making the Utah Valley
Utah Valley
Utah Valley is a valley in North Central Utah located in Utah County, and is considered part of the Wasatch Front. It contains Provo, Orem, and their suburbs, including Highland, Eagle Mountain, Saratoga Springs, Mapleton, Spanish Fork, Lindon, Pleasant Grove, Springville, Lehi, Payson, and...
a focus for technology and software development. Novell technology contributed to the emergence of local area network
Local area network
A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...
s, which displaced the dominant mainframe computing
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
model and changed computing worldwide. Today, a primary focus of the company is on developing open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
software for enterprise
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
clients.
History
Novell owes its beginnings to the Eyring Research InstituteEyring Research Institute
Eyring Research Institute was founded as a non-profit organization, on September 6, 1972. in Provo, Utah.-History:Carlyle Harmon established the Eyring Research Institute with Dr. Ronald G. Hansen as President. This Institute did consulting work in various areas of contract research in cooperation...
(ERI) in Provo, Utah. Dennis Fairclough
Dennis Fairclough
Dennis Fairclough is Deputy Chair/Professor at the Computing & Networking Sciences Department at Utah Valley University. He specializes in teaching Borland C++ Builder and Java....
, Drew Major
Drew Major
Drew Major was one of the founders of Novell and the lead architect and developer of NetWare operating system for over 15 years. In 1981 Drew and his partners Kyle Powell, Dale Neibaur, and Mark Hurst saw value in enabling PCs to share files and other resources via a local area network...
, Dale Neibaur and Kyle Powell left ERI and took with them the experience and technology to found Novell. Fairclough was the member of the original team that started Novell Data Systems. Major, Neibaur and Powell went on to form SuperSet
SuperSet
SuperSet Software was a group founded by friends and former Eyring Research Institute co-workers Drew Major, Dale Neibaur, Kyle Powell and later joined by Mark Hurst...
Software. Fairclough was the original founder of Novell, who was dismissed when Ray Noorda came to Novell. Major, Neibaur and Powell continued to support Novell through their SuperSet
SuperSet
SuperSet Software was a group founded by friends and former Eyring Research Institute co-workers Drew Major, Dale Neibaur, Kyle Powell and later joined by Mark Hurst...
Software Group.
At ERI, Fairclough, Major, Neibaur and Powell worked on government contracts for the Intelligent Systems Technology Project, and gained an important insight into the ARPANET
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
and related technologies, ideas which would become crucial to the foundation of Novell.
The company began in 1979 in Provo, Utah
Provo, Utah
Provo is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Utah, located about south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Provo is the county seat of Utah County and lies between the cities of Orem to the north and Springville to the south...
as Novell Data Systems Inc., a hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
manufacturer producing CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
-based systems. It was co-founded by George Canova, Darin Field, and Jack Davis. Victor V. Vurpillat brought the deal to Pete Musser
Pete Musser
Warren V. "Pete" Musser, born in 1928, is the past Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., which he founded in 1953.He earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering at Lehigh University....
, chairman of the board of Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., who provided the seed funding. The micro computer that was produced by the company was comparatively weak against performance by competitors. In order to compete on systems sales Novell wrote a program to link more than one to operate micro computer together. The company initially did not do well, and both Davis and Canova left the firm. The Safeguard board then ordered Musser to shut Novell down. Musser contacted two Safeguard investors and investment bankers, Barry Rubenstein and Fred Dolin, who guaranteed to raise the necessary funds to continue the business as a software company. Novell's networking program could work on computers from other companies. They, along with Jack Messman, interviewed and hired Raymond Noorda. The required funding was obtained through a rights offering to Safeguard shareholders, managed by the Cleveland brokerage house, Prescott, Ball and Turben, and guaranteed by Rubenstein and Dolin.
In January 1983, the company's name was shortened to Novell, Inc., and Raymond Noorda became the head of the firm. Later that same year, the company introduced its most significant product, the multi-platform network operating system
Network operating system
A networking operating system , also referred to as the Dialoguer, is the software that runs on a server and enables the server to manage data, users, groups, security, applications, and other networking functions...
(NOS), Novell NetWare
Novell NetWare
NetWare is a network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, with network protocols based on the archetypal Xerox Network Systems stack....
.
NetWare
The first Novell product was a proprietary hardware server based on Motorola 6800Motorola 6800
The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips...
CPU supporting 6 MUX
Mux
mux was a windowing system developed by Rob Pike at Bell Labs for the Ninth Edition Research Unix. mux is a predecessor of the Plan 9 windowing systems 8½ and rio, which retain its minimalist user interface.-External links :*...
ports per board for a maximum of 4 boards per server using a star topology with twisted pair
Twisted pair
Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring in which two conductors are twisted together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference from external sources; for instance, electromagnetic radiation from unshielded twisted pair cables, and crosstalk between neighboring pairs...
cabling. A network interface card (NIC) was developed for the IBM PC industry standard architecture
Industry Standard Architecture
Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
(ISA) bus. The server was using the first network operating system
Network operating system
A networking operating system , also referred to as the Dialoguer, is the software that runs on a server and enables the server to manage data, users, groups, security, applications, and other networking functions...
(NOS) called ShareNet. Later, ShareNet was ported to run on the Intel platform and renamed NetWare. The first commercial release of NetWare was version 1.5.
Novell based its network protocol on Xerox Network Systems (XNS), and created its own standards from IDP and SPP, which it named Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) and Sequenced Packet Exchange
IPX/SPX
IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocols used primarily on networks using the Novell NetWare operating systems.-Protocol Layers:...
(SPX). File and print services ran on the NetWare Core Protocol
NetWare Core Protocol
The NetWare Core Protocol is a network protocol used in some products from Novell, Inc. It is usually associated with the NetWare operating system, but parts of it have been implemented on other platforms such as Linux, Windows NT and various flavors of Unix.It is used to access file, print,...
(NCP) over IPX, as did Routing Information Protocol
Routing Information Protocol
The Routing Information Protocol is a distance-vector routing protocol, which employs the hop count as a routing metric. RIP prevents routing loops by implementing a limit on the number of hops allowed in a path from the source to a destination. The maximum number of hops allowed for RIP is 15....
(RIP) and Service Advertising Protocol
Service Advertising Protocol
The Service Advertising Protocol is included in the Internetwork Packet Exchange protocol. SAP makes the process of adding and removing services on an IPX internetwork dynamic...
(SAP).
NetWare uses Novell DOS (formerly DR-DOS
DR-DOS
DR-DOS is an MS-DOS-compatible operating system for IBM PC-compatible personal computers, originally developed by Gary Kildall's Digital Research and derived from Concurrent PC DOS 6.0, which was an advanced successor of CP/M-86...
) as a boot loader. Novell DOS is similar to MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
and IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
PC-DOS
PC-DOS
IBM PC DOS is a DOS system for the IBM Personal Computer and compatibles, manufactured and sold by IBM from the 1980s to the 2000s....
, but no extra license for DOS is required; this came from the acquisition of Digital Research
Digital Research
Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...
in 1991. Novell had already acquired Kanwal Rekhi
Kanwal Rekhi
Kanwal Rekhi is an Indian-American engineer, businessman and millionaire philanthropist.Kanwal was born in Rawalpindi . After the partition of India, his family settled in Kanpur, India...
's company Excelan
Excelan
Excelan was a computer networking company founded in 1982 by Kanwal Rekhi. Excelan was a manufacturer of smart Ethernet cards, until the company merged with, and was acquired by Novell in 1989. The company offered a line of Ethernet "front end processor" boards for Multibus, VMEbus, Q-Bus, Unibus,...
, which manufactured smart ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
cards and commercialized the internet protocol TCP/IP, solidifying Novell's presence in these niche areas.
It was around this time also that Ed Tittel
Ed Tittel
Ed Tittel is a freelance writer and trainer who also works as an Internet consultant. He is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Texas and worked for American software corporation, Novell from 1987–1994, where his final position was Director of Technical Marketing...
of HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
For Dummies notoriety became involved with Novell. Tittel took up various positions within the newly acquired Excelan, becoming national marketing manager for Novell, before being named as Novell's director of technical marketing.
Novell did extremely well throughout the 1980s. It aggressively expanded its market share by selling the expensive ethernet cards at cost. By 1990, Novell had an almost monopolistic
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
position in NOS for any business requiring a network.
With this market leadership, Novell began to acquire and build services on top of its NetWare operating platform. These services extended NetWare's capabilities with such products as NetWare for SAA, Novell multi-protocol router, GroupWise and BorderManager.
Beyond NetWare
However, Novell was also diversifying, moving away from its smaller users to target large corporations, although the company later attempted to refocus with NetWare for Small Business. It reduced investment in research and was slow to improve the product administration tools, although it was helped by the fact its products typically needed little "tweaking" — they just ran.In June 1993, the company bought Unix System Laboratories
Unix System Laboratories
Unix System Laboratories was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989. USL joined with the UNIX Software Operation, also a Bell Laboratories division, in 1990. It assumed responsibility for Unix development and licensing activities...
from AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
, acquiring rights to the Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
operating system, seemingly in an attempt to challenge Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. In 1994, Novell bought WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
, as well as the Quattro Pro
Quattro Pro
Quattro Pro is a spreadsheet program developed by Borland and now sold by Corel, most often as part of Corel's WordPerfect Office.Historically, Quattro Pro used keyboard commands similar to Lotus 1-2-3. It is commonly said to have been the first program to use tabbed sheets. Actually, Boeing Calc...
from Borland
Borland
Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
. These acquisitions did not last. Novell in 1995 assigned portions of its Unix business to the Santa Cruz Operation. WordPerfect and Quattro Pro were sold to Corel
Corel
Corel Corporation from the abbreviation is a computer software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, that specializes in graphics processing, similar to Adobe Systems...
in 1996. Novell DOS was also sold to Caldera
Caldera (company)
Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products.- Caldera :Caldera, Inc...
in 1996.
As Novell faced new competition, Noorda was replaced by Robert Frankenberg
Robert Frankenberg
Robert J. "Bob" Frankenberg is an American computer engineer and business executive who served as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Novell, Inc. from 1994 to 1996.-Life and career:...
in 1994, and was followed by several CEOs who served short terms. One of Novell's major innovations at the time was Novell Directory Services (NDS), now known as eDirectory. Introduced with NetWare v4.0. eDirectory replaced the old Bindery server and user management technology employed by NetWare 3.x and earlier.
In 1996, the company began a move into internet-enabled products, replacing reliance on the proprietary IPX protocol in favor of a native TCP/IP stack. The move was accelerated when Eric Schmidt became CEO in 1997 and then Christopher Stone was brought in. The result was NetWare v5.0, released in October 1998, which leveraged and built upon eDirectory and introduced new functions, such as Novell Cluster Services (NCS, a replacement for SFT-III) and Novell Storage Services (NSS), a replacement for the Traditional/FAT filesystem used by earlier versions of NetWare. While NetWare v5.0 introduced native TCP/IP support into the NOS, IPX was still supported, allowing for smooth transitions between environments and avoiding the "forklift upgrades" frequently required by competing environments. Similarly, the Traditional/FAT file system remained a supported option.
However, by 1999, Novell had lost its dominant market position, and was continually being out-marketed by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, which gained access to corporate data centers by bypassing technical staff and selling directly to corporate executives. Microsoft worked to make NetWare look second place with Windows 2000
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
features such as Group Policy. Microsoft's GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
was also more popular and looked more modern than the character-based Novell interfaces. With falling revenue, the company focused on net services and platform interoperability. Products such as eDirectory and GroupWise were made multi-platform.
In October 2000, Novell released a new product, dubbed DirXML, which was designed to synchronize data, often user information, between disparate directory and database systems. This product leveraged the speed and functionality of eDirectory to store information, and would later become the Novell Identity Manager
Novell Identity Manager
Novell Identity Manager is Novell's implementation of Identity Management software. Previously known as DirXML the product utilizes XML-based configuration files to determine the product's implemented functions...
and form the foundation of a core product set within Novell.
In July 2001, Novell acquired the consulting company, Cambridge Technology Partners
Cambridge Technology Partners
Cambridge Technology Partners was founded by John J. Donovan in 1991 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA as a division of Cambridge Technology Group, is a leading consulting firm with focus on solving complex business problems with technology based solutions.Today, the headquarters are based in Nyon...
, founded in Cambridge, MA by John J. Donovan, to expand offerings into services. Novell felt that the ability to offer solutions (a combination of software and services) was key to satisfying customer demand. The merger was apparently against the firm's software development culture, and the finance personnel at the firm also recommended against it. The CEO of CTP, Jack Messman, engineered the merger using his position as a board member of Novell since its inception and soon became CEO of Novell as well. He then hired back Chris Stone as vice chairman and CEO to set the course for Novell's strategy into open source and enterprise Linux. With the acquisition of CTP, Novell moved its headquarters to Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
.
In July 2002, Novell acquired SilverStream Software, a leader in web services-oriented application, but a laggard in the marketplace. The business area called Novell exteNd
Novell exteNd
Novell exteNd, formerly known as SilverStream, was a web application development suite from Novell that was discontinued in 2005. The latest version was 5.2. With the release of Novell Identity Manager 3, the components of the portal services in exteNd were rebranded into the IDM User Application...
contains XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
and Web Service
Web service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
tools based on Java EE.
Linux for Business
In August 2003, Novell acquired XimianXimian
Ximian was a company that provided free software desktop applications for Linux and Unix based on the GNOME platform. Ximian was founded by Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman in October, 1999, and was bought by Novell on August 4, 2003...
, a developer of open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
applications (Evolution
Novell Evolution
Evolution or Novell Evolution is the official personal information manager and workgroup information management tool for GNOME. It combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions. It has been an official part of GNOME since version 2.8 in September 2004...
, Red Carpet and Mono
Mono (software)
Mono, pronounced , is a free and open source project led by Xamarin to create an Ecma standard compliant .NET-compatible set of tools including, among others, a C# compiler and a Common Language Runtime....
). This acquisition signaled Novell's plans to move its collective product set onto a Linux kernel
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....
.
In November 2003, Novell acquired SuSE, a developer of a leading Linux distribution
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...
, which led to a major shift of power in Linux distributions. IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
also invested $50 million to show support of the SuSE acquisition. Within the openSUSE
OpenSUSE
openSUSE is a general purpose operating system built on top of the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported openSUSE Project and sponsored by SUSE...
project, Novell continues to contribute to SUSE Linux. openSUSE can be downloaded freely and available as boxed retail product http://www.open-slx.com/doku.php with formal support http://www.open-slx.com/doku.php?id=support.
In mid-2003, Novell released "Novell eNterprise Linux Services" (NNLS), which ported some of the services traditionally associated with NetWare to SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a Linux distribution supplied by SUSE and targeted at the business market. It is targeted for servers, mainframes, and workstations but can be installed on desktop computers for testing as well. New major versions are released at an interval of 3-4 years, while...
(SLES) version 8.
In November 2004, Novell released the Linux-based enterprise desktop Novell Linux Desktop v9. This product was based on Ximian Desktop and SUSE Linux Professional 9.1. This was Novell's first attempt to get into the enterprise desktop market.
The successor product to NetWare, Open Enterprise Server
Novell Open Enterprise Server
Novell Open Enterprise Server is the successor product to Novell, Inc.'s NetWare operating system, based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server . Originally released in March 2005, the current release is OES 2 SP3...
, was released in March 2005. OES offers all the services previously hosted by NetWare v6.5, and added the choice of delivering those services using either a NetWare v6.5 or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a Linux distribution supplied by SUSE and targeted at the business market. It is targeted for servers, mainframes, and workstations but can be installed on desktop computers for testing as well. New major versions are released at an interval of 3-4 years, while...
v9 kernel. The release was aimed to persuade NetWare customers to move to Linux.
Stagnation
From 2003 through 2005 Novell released many products across its portfolio, with the intention of arresting falling market share and to move away from dependencies on other Novell products, but the launches were not as successful as Novell had hoped. In late 2004, Chris Stone left the company after an apparent control issue with then Chairman Jack Messman. In an effort to cut costs, Novell announced a round of layoffs in late 2005. While revenue from its Linux business continued to grow, the growth was not fast enough to stop the decrease in revenue of NetWare. While the company's revenue was not falling rapidly, it wasn't growing, either. Lack of clear direction or effective management meant that Novell took longer than expected to complete its restructuring.In June 2006, chief executive Jack Messman and chief finance officer Joseph Tibbetts were fired, with Ronald Hovsepian
Ronald Hovsepian
Ronald W. Hovsepian was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Novell, Inc. After the successful acquisition of Novell by Attachmate Corporation, Hovsepian and most of his leadership team left Novell on April 25th, 2011....
, Novell's president and chief operating officer, appointed chief executive, and Dana Russell, vice-president of finance and corporate controller, appointed interim CFO.
"Your Linux is Ready"
In August 2006, Novell released the SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 (SLE 10) series. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server was the first enterprise class Linux server to offer virtualization based on the XenXen
Xen is a virtual-machine monitor providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently....
hypervisor. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (popularly known as SLED) featured a new user-friendly GUI and XGL
Xgl
Xgl was an X server architecture designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL via glitz. It supported hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL and XVideo applications and graphical effects by a compositing window manager such as Compiz or...
-based 3D display capabilities. The release of SLE 10 was marketed with the phrase "Your Linux is Ready", meant to convey that Novell's Linux offerings were ready for the enterprise. In late September 2006 Novell announced a real time version of SLES called SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time (SLERT) based on technology from Concurrent Computer Corporation
Concurrent Computer Corporation
Concurrent Computer Corporation is a developer and provider of Video on demand systems to Multiple Service Organizations. Concurrent's On-Demand technology is based on off-the-shelf hardware and customized open-source software including RedHawk Linux, a customized version of Red Hat Enterprise...
.
On November 2, 2006, Novell and Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
announced a joint patent agreement to cover their respective products. They also promised to work more closely, to improve compatibility of software, setting up a joint research facility. Executives of both companies hope such cooperation will lead to better compatibility between Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
and OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
and better virtualization techniques.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer is an American business magnate. He is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000. , his personal wealth is estimated at US$13.9 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.-Early life:Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to...
said of the deal, "This set of agreements will really help bridge the divide between open-source and proprietary source software."
The deal involves upfront payment of $348 million from Microsoft to Novell for patent cooperation and SLES
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a Linux distribution supplied by SUSE and targeted at the business market. It is targeted for servers, mainframes, and workstations but can be installed on desktop computers for testing as well. New major versions are released at an interval of 3-4 years, while...
subscription. Additionally, Microsoft will spend around $46 million yearly, over the next 5 years, for marketing and selling a combined SLES/Windows Server offering and related virtualization solutions, while Novell will pay at least $40 million yearly to Microsoft, in the same period.
One of the first results of this partnership was that Novell adapted the OpenXML/ODF Translator for use in OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
.
Reaction of FOSS community
Initial reaction from members of the FOSSFree and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
community over the patent protection was mostly critical, with expressions of concern that Novell had "sold out" and of doubt that the GPL would allow distribution of code, including the Linux kernel, under this exclusive agreement.
In a letter to the FOSS development community on November 9 2006, Bradley M. Kuhn
Bradley M. Kuhn
Bradley M. Kuhn is a free software activist from the United States.Kuhn is currently Executive Director of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Until 2010 he was the FLOSS Community Liaison and Technology Director of the Software Freedom Law Center . He previously served as the Executive Director of...
, CTO of the Software Freedom Law Center
Software Freedom Law Center
The Software Freedom Law Center is an organization that provides pro bono legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen as Chairman. Initial funding of US$4 million was pledged by...
described the agreement as "worse than useless." In a separate development the chairman of the SFLC, Eben Moglen
Eben Moglen
Eben Moglen is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, whose client list includes numerous pro bono clients, such as the Free Software Foundation....
, reported that Novell had offered cooperation with the SFLC to permit a confidential audit to determine the compliance of the agreement with the GPL (version 2). Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
, founder of the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
, said in November 2006 that changes coming with the version 3 of the GPL will preclude such deals. When the final revision of the third version of the GPL license was decided, the deal between Microsoft and Novell was grandfather
Grandfather clause
Grandfather clause is a legal term used to describe a situation in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations, while a new rule will apply to all future situations. It is often used as a verb: to grandfather means to grant such an exemption...
ed in. A new clause will let companies like Novell distribute GPLv3 software even if they have made such patent partnerships in the past, as long as the partnership deal was made before March 28, 2007 (GPLv3 Section 11 paragraph 7 ).
On November 12 2006, the Samba
Samba (software)
Samba is a free software re-implementation, originally developed by Andrew Tridgell, of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol. As of version 3, Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain...
team expressed strong disapproval of Novell's announcement on November 2 2006 and asked Novell to reconsider. The Samba team includes an employee of Novell, Jeremy Allison
Jeremy Allison
Jeremy Allison is a computer programmer known for his contributions to the free software community, notably to Samba, a re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, released under the GNU General Public License....
, who confirmed in a comment on Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
that the statement was agreed on by all members of the team, and later quit his job at Novell in protest.
In early February 2007, Reuters reported that the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
had announced that it was reviewing Novell's right to sell Linux versions, and may even ban Novell from selling Linux, because of an agreement. However Eben Moglen
Eben Moglen
Eben Moglen is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, whose client list includes numerous pro bono clients, such as the Free Software Foundation....
later said that he was quoted out of context. He was explaining that GPL version 3 will be designed to block similar deals in the future. Currently, Novell is not violating the GPL version 2 but the GPLv3 prevents such deals being made in the future. Microsoft has released two public covenants not to sue for the infringement of its patents when using Moonlight. The two covenants require the implementation to not to be released in GPLv3 .
Intelligent Workload Management
In December 2009, Novell announced its intention to lead the market it identified as intelligent workload managementIntelligent workload management
Intelligent workload management is an emerging paradigm for IT systems management arising from the intersection of dynamic infrastructure, virtualization, identity management, and the discipline of software appliance development...
(IWM). The company's products will enable customers to manage diverse workloads in a heterogeneous data center.
Acquisition by Attachmate
Novell had long been rumored to be a target for acquisition by a variety of other companies. On March 2, 2010, Elliott Associates, L.P., an institutional investor with approximately 8.5% stock ownership of Novell, offered to acquire the company for $5.75 per share in cash, or $1 billion. On March 20, 2010, the company declined the offer and stated 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 Attachmate
Attachmate
Attachmate Corporation is a software company owned by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, and Thoma Cressey Bravo. Attachmate focuses on terminal emulation, legacy modernization, managed file transfer, and enterprise fraud management software. Attachmate Corporation...
for $2.2 billion. Attachmate plans to operate Novell as two units, one being SUSE
SUSE Linux distributions
SUSE Linux is a computer operating system. It is built on top of the open source Linux kernel and is distributed with system and application software from other open source projects. SUSE Linux is of German origin and mainly developed in Europe. The first version appeared in early 1994, making...
. As part of the deal, 882 patents
Software patent
Software patent does not have a universally accepted definition. One definition suggested by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure is that a software patent is a "patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program".In 2005, the European Patent Office...
owned by Novell are planned to be sold to CPTN Holdings
CPTN Holdings
CPTN Holdings LLC is a consortium of technology companies led by Microsoft that acquired a portfolio of 882 patents as part of the sale of Novell to Attachmate....
LLC, a consortium of companies led by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
and including Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
, EMC
EMC Corporation
EMC Corporation , a Financial Times Global 500, Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, develops, delivers and supports information infrastructure and virtual infrastructure hardware, software, and services. EMC is headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, USA.Former Intel executive Richard Egan and his...
, and Oracle
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
. According to Novell's SEC filing, the patents "relate primarily to enterprise-level computer systems management software, enterprise-level file management and collaboration software in addition to patents relevant to our identity and security management business, although it is possible that certain of such issued patents and patent applications read on a range of different software products". Additionally, the future owner anticipates no change to the relationship between the SUSE business and the openSUSE project as a result of this transaction.
On 27 April 2011, Novell announced that the merger with Attachmate had been completed, with Attachmate paying $6.10 per share in cash to acquire Novell. Immediately prior, Novell completed the sale of "certain identified issued patents and patent applications" to CPTN Holdings LLC for $450 million in cash. Novell is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group, the parent company of Attachmate Corporation.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that in order to proceed with the first phase of their acquisition of certain patents and patent applications from Novell Inc., CPTN Holdings LLC and its owners altered their original agreements to address the department's antitrust concerns. The department said that, as originally proposed, the deal would jeopardize the ability of open source software, such as Linux, to continue to innovate and compete in the development and distribution of server, desktop, and mobile operating systems, middleware, and virtualization products.
With regard to licensing the patents:
- All of the Novell patents will be acquired subject to the GNU General Public License, Version 2, a widely adopted open-source license, and the Open Invention Network (OIN) License, a significant license for the Linux System;
- CPTN does not have the right to limit which of the patents, if any, are available under the OIN license; and
- Neither CPTN nor its owners will make any statement or take any action with the purpose of influencing or encouraging either Novell or Attachmate to modify which of the patents are available under the OIN license.
Concurrent with the closing of the acquisition, some of Novell's products and brands were transferred to another Attachmate Group business units, NetIQ, and the SUSE Linux brand was spun off as its own business unit. The fourth business unit, Attachmate
Attachmate
Attachmate Corporation is a software company owned by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, and Thoma Cressey Bravo. Attachmate focuses on terminal emulation, legacy modernization, managed file transfer, and enterprise fraud management software. Attachmate Corporation...
, was not directly impacted by the acquisition.
On April 2011, Attachmate announced layoffs for the Novell workforce, including hundreds of employees from their Provo
Provo, Utah
Provo is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Utah, located about south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Provo is the county seat of Utah County and lies between the cities of Orem to the north and Springville to the south...
Utah Valley
Utah Valley
Utah Valley is a valley in North Central Utah located in Utah County, and is considered part of the Wasatch Front. It contains Provo, Orem, and their suburbs, including Highland, Eagle Mountain, Saratoga Springs, Mapleton, Spanish Fork, Lindon, Pleasant Grove, Springville, Lehi, Payson, and...
center, raising questions about the future of some open source projects such as Mono
Mono (software)
Mono, pronounced , is a free and open source project led by Xamarin to create an Ecma standard compliant .NET-compatible set of tools including, among others, a C# compiler and a Common Language Runtime....
.
Organization
Novell is organized into product development, sales, and services divisions.In December 2009, Novell reorganized its product development business units into two Business Units: Security, Management, and Operating Platforms; and Collaboration Solutions.
The Collaboration Solutions Business Unit is based around providing applications for office productivity products:
- GroupWise
- Novell Conferencing
- Novell Data Synchronizer
- Novell File Management SuiteNovell File Management SuiteNovell File Management Suite is a suite of applications designed for the identity -based indexing and management of user files on enterprise networks. The three components of the File Management Suite are Novell Storage Manager, Novell File Reporter, and Novell Dynamic File Services. The Suite...
- Novell File ReporterNovell File ReporterNovell File Reporter is software that allows network administrators to identify files stored on the network and generates reports regarding the size of individual files, file type, when files were last accessed, and where duplicates exist. Additionally, the File Reporter tracks storage volume...
- Novell Storage ManagerNovell Storage ManagerNovell Storage Manager is a system software package released by Novell in 2004 that uses identity, policy and directory events to automate full lifecycle management of file storage for individual users and organizational groups...
- Novell Vibe Cloud (discontinued and features merged into product 'Vibe', formerly Vibe OnPrem)
- Novell Vibe
- Open Enterprise Server
The Security, Management, and Operating Platforms Business Unit is based around the remainder of Novell's products (formerly separated into Systems and Resource Management, Identity and Security Management, and Open Platform Solutions business units):
- Novell eDirectoryNovell eDirectoryNovell eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product initially released in 1993 by Novell for centrally managing access to resources on multiple servers and computers within a given network...
- Novell Identity ManagerNovell Identity ManagerNovell Identity Manager is Novell's implementation of Identity Management software. Previously known as DirXML the product utilizes XML-based configuration files to determine the product's implemented functions...
(IDM) — manage access across a heterogeneous group of networks, systems, and information. - Novell Access ManagerNovell Access ManagerAccess Manager is access management product from Novell, Inc., successor to the iChain product. It supports single sign-on for web applications and SSL VPN.- External links :*...
— successor of Border Manager and iChain. Provides identity-based access to internal resources from inside or outside a given network, including web applications, SSLVPN applications, and so forth. Also includes federation based on Liberty and SAML. - Novell BorderManagerNovell BorderManagerBorderManager is a multi purpose network security application developed by Novell, Inc. BorderManager is designed as a proxy server, firewall, and VPN access point...
— Manages access to external websites from inside the corporate network based on identities and policies. - Novell Sentinel — A Security Event ManagerSecurity Event ManagerA security event manager is a computerized tool used on enterprise data networks to centralize the storage and interpretation of logs, or events, generated by other software running on the network....
that provides event collection, automated correlation, analysis, and reporting and is now fully integrated with Identity Manager and other IDMIdentity managementIdentity management is a broad administrative area that deals with identifying individuals in a system and controlling access to the resources in that system by placing restrictions on the established identities of the individuals.Identity management is multidisciplinary and covers many...
solutions to provide visibility into user activities. - Novell Secure Login — A Single Sign-OnSingle sign-onSingle sign-on is a property of access control of multiple related, but independent software systems. With this property a user logs in once and gains access to all systems without being prompted to log in again at each of them...
product. It is listed in the leader's quadrant in Gartner Magic Quadrant 2009 & 2010. - Novell Service Desk — An ITIL Certified Service Management Product OEM'd from LiveTime Software, Inc.
- ZENworksNovell ZENworksNovell ZENworks, a suite of software products developed and maintained by Novell, Inc. for computer systems management, aims to manage the entire life cycle of servers, of desktop PCs , of laptops, and of handheld devices such as personal digital assistants . ZENworks recently included full disk...
toolset, which provides application and patch management for servers, desktops, and handheld devices and asset management for Windows and Linux. - The PlateSpinPlateSpinPlateSpin is a subsidiary of Novell headquartered in Toronto, Canada, which produces tools to help manage virtualization on VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V or Citrix XenServer.- History :PlateSpin won an International Stevie Award in 2006 for best overall company....
portfolio, which provides virtualization and workload management tools, allowing data center operators to plan and implement virtualization projects, and provide ongoing workload protection using both software and the Forge disaster recovery appliance - Novell Operations Center — solution to communicate service performance in alignment with business objectives, while controlling the infrastructure in the data center across physical, virtual and cloud environments.
- SUSE Linux Enterprise (Server, Desktop and related extensions)
- SUSE StudioSUSE StudioSUSE Studio is an online Linux image creation tool by Novell. Users can develop their own Linux OS, software appliance or virtual appliance, mainly choosing which applications and packages they want on their "custom" Linux and how it looks...
- LibreOfficeLibreOfficeLibreOffice is a free and open source office suite developed by The Document Foundation as a fork of OpenOffice.org. It is largely compatible with other major office suites, including Microsoft Office, and available on a variety of platforms...
(formerly OpenOffice.orgOpenOffice.orgOpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
) - MonoMono (software)Mono, pronounced , is a free and open source project led by Xamarin to create an Ecma standard compliant .NET-compatible set of tools including, among others, a C# compiler and a Common Language Runtime....
Novell are founding members of the Open Invention Network
Open Invention Network
The Open Invention Network is a company that acquires patents and licenses them royalty free to entities which, in turn, agree not to assert their own patents against Linux and Linux-related systems and applications.-History:...
, a group of companies that acquires patents, with the aim to protect free and open source software against the threat of patent infringement cases.
Support system
Novell has a wide array of web-based and phone-based support options for its customers. The Novell support website was named one of the "Ten Best Web Support Sites" in [2003] by the Association of Support Professionals (ASP). In [2003], Novell received an Outstanding Website Award in the WebAward Competition for their Cool Solutions website with a searchable database of advice, tools and problem fixes submitted by users from all over the world.Novell also hosts support forums covering all of their products including SUSE Linux Enterprise, GroupWise, ZENworks and NetWare. Novell offers users both HTTP and NNTP access to the support forums and a search option. Whilst Novell encourages the use of these forums, it does not officially monitor these forums. The forums are maintained by SysOps that have a demonstrated competency with the various products and volunteer their time to try and help the wider community.
Novell maintains a number of wikis with up-to-date information on a number of its products. For instance, as new NetWare service packs are released the NetWare wiki is updated with tips and known issues with the service packs. In some cases, the service packs themselves will have their own wiki with information added from feedback provided in the support forums.
Acquisitions
- Santa Clara Systems, Inc. — 1986
- Cache Data Products — 1986
- Softcraft — 1987
- CXI — 1988
- Excelan — 1989
- Digital ResearchDigital ResearchDigital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...
— 1991 - International Business Software Ltd. — 1992
- SeriusAppWareAppWare was a rapid application development system for Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS based on a simple graphical programming language. AppWare was developed by Joseph Firmage and marketed by Serius, a company started by Firmage in 1989...
— 1993 - Unix System LaboratoriesUnix System LaboratoriesUnix System Laboratories was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989. USL joined with the UNIX Software Operation, also a Bell Laboratories division, in 1990. It assumed responsibility for Unix development and licensing activities...
— 1993 - WordPerfectWordPerfectWordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
& Quattro ProQuattro ProQuattro Pro is a spreadsheet program developed by Borland and now sold by Corel, most often as part of Corel's WordPerfect Office.Historically, Quattro Pro used keyboard commands similar to Lotus 1-2-3. It is commonly said to have been the first program to use tabbed sheets. Actually, Boeing Calc...
(BorlandBorlandBorland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
) — 1994 - Netoria — 1999
- Novetrix — 1999
- JustOn — 1999
- PGSoft — 2000
- Novetrix — 2001
- Cambridge Technology PartnersCambridge Technology PartnersCambridge Technology Partners was founded by John J. Donovan in 1991 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA as a division of Cambridge Technology Group, is a leading consulting firm with focus on solving complex business problems with technology based solutions.Today, the headquarters are based in Nyon...
— 2001 - Callisto Software, Inc. — 2001
- SilverStream Software — 2002
- XimianXimianXimian was a company that provided free software desktop applications for Linux and Unix based on the GNOME platform. Ximian was founded by Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman in October, 1999, and was bought by Novell on August 4, 2003...
— 2003 - SuSE — 2003
- Salmon — 2004
- Tally Systems — 2005
- Immunix — 2005
- e-Security, Inc — 2006
- RedMojo — 2007
- Senforce — 2007
- PlatespinPlateSpinPlateSpin is a subsidiary of Novell headquartered in Toronto, Canada, which produces tools to help manage virtualization on VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V or Citrix XenServer.- History :PlateSpin won an International Stevie Award in 2006 for best overall company....
— 2008 - SiteScape — 2008
- Command Control and Compliance Auditor, (Fortefi) — 2008
- Managed Objects, Inc. — 2008
Certification
Novell is one of the first computer companies to provide certification to its products. They include:- Certified Novell AdministratorCertified Novell AdministratorA Certified Novell Administrator is a person that has been professionally certified by Novell to administer NetWare-based based computer networks. The test fee is $125 per attempt and is administered through Pearson VUE testing sites....
(CNA) - Certified Novell EngineerCertified Novell EngineerCertified Novell Engineer is a certification which is designed to show that an individual possesses in-depth knowledge and skills related to administration and troubleshooting of the Novell NetWare operating system.- Purpose :...
(CNE) - Certified Linux Professional 10 (CLP 10)
- Certified Linux Engineer 10 (CLE 10)
Products
- Novell iFolderIFolderiFolder is an open source application, developed by Novell, Inc., intended to allow cross-platform file sharing across computer networks.iFolder operates on the concept of shared folders, where a folder is marked as shared and the contents of the folder are then synchronized to other computers over...
- MonoMono (software)Mono, pronounced , is a free and open source project led by Xamarin to create an Ecma standard compliant .NET-compatible set of tools including, among others, a C# compiler and a Common Language Runtime....
- Novell Access ManagerNovell Access ManagerAccess Manager is access management product from Novell, Inc., successor to the iChain product. It supports single sign-on for web applications and SSL VPN.- External links :*...
(formerly iChain) - Novell Client
- Novell Cloud Manager
- Novell Cloud Security ServiceNovell Cloud Security ServiceNovell Cloud Security Service is a Web-based identity and access management solution, currently in private beta but scheduled for release in early 2010...
- Novell Conferencing
- Novell Data Synchronizer
- Novell eDirectoryNovell eDirectoryNovell eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product initially released in 1993 by Novell for centrally managing access to resources on multiple servers and computers within a given network...
- Novell EvolutionNovell EvolutionEvolution or Novell Evolution is the official personal information manager and workgroup information management tool for GNOME. It combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions. It has been an official part of GNOME since version 2.8 in September 2004...
- Novell File Management SuiteNovell File Management SuiteNovell File Management Suite is a suite of applications designed for the identity -based indexing and management of user files on enterprise networks. The three components of the File Management Suite are Novell Storage Manager, Novell File Reporter, and Novell Dynamic File Services. The Suite...
- Novell File ReporterNovell File ReporterNovell File Reporter is software that allows network administrators to identify files stored on the network and generates reports regarding the size of individual files, file type, when files were last accessed, and where duplicates exist. Additionally, the File Reporter tracks storage volume...
- Novell GroupWiseNovell GroupWiseGroupWise is a messaging and collaborative software platform from Novell that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The platform consists of the client software, which is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and the server...
- Novell Identity ManagerNovell Identity ManagerNovell Identity Manager is Novell's implementation of Identity Management software. Previously known as DirXML the product utilizes XML-based configuration files to determine the product's implemented functions...
- Novell NetWareNovell NetWareNetWare is a network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, with network protocols based on the archetypal Xerox Network Systems stack....
- Novell Open Enterprise ServerNovell Open Enterprise ServerNovell Open Enterprise Server is the successor product to Novell, Inc.'s NetWare operating system, based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server . Originally released in March 2005, the current release is OES 2 SP3...
- Novell Open Workgroup Suite
- Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition
- Novell Operations Center
- Novell Secure Login
- Novell Sentinel
- Novell Sentinel Log Manager
- Novell Service Desk
- Novell Storage ManagerNovell Storage ManagerNovell Storage Manager is a system software package released by Novell in 2004 that uses identity, policy and directory events to automate full lifecycle management of file storage for individual users and organizational groups...
- Novell Vibe (formerly Novell Teaming)
- PlateSpin Forge
- PlateSpin Migrate
- PlateSpin Orchestrate
- PlateSpin Protect
- PlateSpin Recon
- Subscription Management ToolSubscription Management ToolSubscription Management Tool is a software package produced by Novell, providing a subscription management proxy service, and a local software update mirror for Novell Open Enterprise Server, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and OpenSUSE systems....
- SUSE Linux Enterprise ServerSUSE Linux Enterprise ServerSUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a Linux distribution supplied by SUSE and targeted at the business market. It is targeted for servers, mainframes, and workstations but can be installed on desktop computers for testing as well. New major versions are released at an interval of 3-4 years, while...
- SUSE Linux Enterprise DesktopSUSE Linux Enterprise DesktopSUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop , formerly introduced as Novell Linux Desktop, is a Linux distribution supplied by Novell and targeted at the business market. It is targeted for desktops. New major versions are released at an interval of 24–36 months, while minor versions are released every 9–12...
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Thin Client
- SUSE Linux Retail Solution
- SUSE StudioSUSE StudioSUSE Studio is an online Linux image creation tool by Novell. Users can develop their own Linux OS, software appliance or virtual appliance, mainly choosing which applications and packages they want on their "custom" Linux and how it looks...
- ZENworks Application VirtualizationNovell ZENworks Application VIrtualizationNovell ZENworks Application Virtualization is an application virtualization and portable application creation console by Novell that allows a user to build applications that run like an executable file.-History:...
- ZENworks Asset Management
- ZENworks Configuration Management
- ZENworks Endpoint Security Management
- ZENworks Handheld Management
- ZENworks Linux Management
- ZENworks Network Access Control
- ZENworks Patch Management
- ZENworks Server Management