Novell Inc.

Novell began in Provo, Utah as Novell Data Systems Inc. in 1979, a hardware manufacturer producing CP/M based systems. In January 1983, the company’s name was shortened to Novell Inc. Also in 1983, the company introduced its most significant product, the multi-platform network operating system (NOS), Novell NetWare. Novell did extremely well throughout the 1980s, acting aggressively to increase the market initially by selling the expensive Ethernet cards at cost; by 1990, Novell had an almost monopolistic position in NOS for any business requiring a network.

In 1996, the company began a move into internet-enabled products, however, by 1999, Novell had lost its dominant market position, and was continually being out-marketed by Microsoft. In 2003 Novell signalled 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. The future growth of Novell is largely dependent on how successful the SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 10 products are in the market place.

External link

• Novell support and resources

Novell products