1980–2014 American multinational software and services company
Not to be confused with Novel.
Novell, Inc.
Headquarters tower (Building H) in Provo, Utah in 2008
Company type
Private (until 1985) Public (until 2011) Division (until 2014)
Traded as
Nasdaq: NOVL
Industry
Computer software
Founded
August 1980; 43 years ago (1980-08) Orem, Utah, United States
Founder
George Canova
Jack Davis
Defunct
November 2014 (2014-11)
Fate
Acquired by The Attachmate Group, then by Micro Focus International and OpenText
Headquarters
Provo, Utah
Waltham, Massachusetts
Key people
Drew Major
Ray Noorda
Craig Burton
Judith Clarke
Kanwal Rekhi
Robert Frankenberg
Eric Schmidt
Jack Messman
Ronald Hovsepian
Products
Novell NetWare
Novell GroupWise
Novell Open Enterprise Server
Novell Vibe
Novell ZENworks
Revenue
$2.0 billion (peak, 1994 and 1995)
Number of employees
10,150 (peak, 1994)
Website
www.novell.com
Novell, Inc.[1] (/noʊˈvɛl/) was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare.
Under the leadership of chief executive Ray Noorda, NetWare became the dominant form of personal computer networking during the second half of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s. At its high point, NetWare had a 63 percent share of the market for network operating systems and by the early 1990s there were over half a million NetWare-based networks installed worldwide encompassing more than 50 million users. 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.
During the early to mid-1990s, Noorda attempted to compete directly with Microsoft by acquiring Digital Research, Unix System Laboratories, WordPerfect, and the Quattro Pro division of Borland. These moves did not work out, due to new technologies not fitting well with Novell's existing user base or being too late to compete with equivalent Microsoft products.
NetWare began losing market share once Microsoft bundled network services with the Windows NT operating system and its successors. Despite new products such as Novell Directory Services and GroupWise, Novell entered a long period of decline. Eventually Novell acquired SUSE Linux and attempted to refocus its technology base. Despite building or acquiring several new kinds of products, Novell failed to find consistent success and never regained its past dominance.
The company was an independent corporate entity until it was acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary by The Attachmate Group in 2011. Attachmate was subsequently acquired in 2014 by Micro Focus International and then by OpenText in 2023. Novell products and technologies are now integrated within various OpenText divisions.
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Novell, Inc. (/noʊˈvɛl/) was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant...
integrates with GroupWise. The product's ownership history includes WordPerfect, Novell and Attachmate; Micro Focus's 2014 acquisition of Attachmate resulted in...
NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services...
known for its YaST configuration tool. Novell bought the SUSE (then "SuSE") brands and trademarks in 2003. Novell, one of the founding members of the Open...
popular standard by the mid-1990s. WordPerfect Corporation was sold to Novell in 1994, which then sold the product to Corel in 1996. Corel (since rebranded...
conducted business as Novell from SLED's first release as Novell Linux Desktop in 2004 until 2011 when The Attachmate Group purchased Novell and created SUSE...
Novell Client for Windows Vista from Novell. Novell Client for Windows 2000/XP/2003 from Novell. Novell Client for Windows 95/98 from Novell. Novell Client...
GNOME Evolution (formerly Novell Evolution and Ximian Evolution, prior to Novell's 2003 acquisition of Ximian) is the official personal information manager...
for NetWare, was a project run by Novell corporation's Advanced Technology Group (ATG) between 1993 and 1995. Novell wanted a desktop environment with...
owned venture of AT&T's Unix System Laboratories (USL) and Novell. It was then taken over by Novell. Via Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), it went on to Caldera...
Novell Vibe is a web-based team collaboration platform developed by Novell. It was initially released by Novell in June 2008 under the name of Novell...
(HP-UX), and IBM (AIX). In the early 1990s, AT&T sold its rights in Unix to Novell, which then sold the UNIX trademark to The Open Group, an industry consortium...
developed by Novell for DOS- and Windows-based personal computers aimed at personal users and small businesses in the 1990s. In 1991, Novell introduced...
security application developed by Novell, Inc. BorderManager is designed as a proxy server, firewall, and VPN access point. Novell has announced that migration...
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...
standards on the same physical medium. Novell's "raw" 802.3 frame format was based on early IEEE 802.3 work. Novell used this as a starting point to create...
United States. The major companies held by the group were Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell, and SUSE. Attachmate was owned by Wizard Parent LLC—an investment group...
iFolder is an open-source application, developed by Novell, Inc., intended to allow cross-platform file sharing across computer networks. iFolder operates...
late 1980s and mid-1990s because it was used by Novell NetWare, a network operating system. Due to Novell NetWare's popularity, IPX became a prominent protocol...
is performed with a specialized command, like "NCOPY" in DOS clients for Novell NetWare. The COPY command in some versions of DR-DOS since 1992, has built-in...
founded by Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman in 1999 and was bought by Novell in 2003. Novell continued to develop Ximian's original products, while adding support...
help improve system performance as well. DPMS was originally developed by Novell's Digital Research GmbH, Germany, in 1992. It is compatible with any DOS...
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