Novell has been involved with Linux for just a short time — it made its major acquisitions in the area only a few years ago — but the company seems to be trying to make up for lost time. Its deal with Microsoft is controversial, but the company’s new CEO says that customers stand to benefit greatly. Here’s an inside look at how Novell sells Linux.
Originally published in the February 2007 print edition of Linux Magazine.
Novell has been involved with Linux for just a short time — it made its major acquisitions in the area only a few years ago — but the company seems to be trying to make up for lost time. More accurately, Novell wants to accelerate its plans and grow into a major Linux force.
Although a recent patent deal with Microsoft has put Novell in the spotlight — and for some in the community, in the hotseat — crafting an arrangement with the Redmond behemoth is far from its only plan for Linux. In addition to adopting Linux internally, the company has also been eager to gain a stronger foothold in the datacenter and to beef up its offerings in virtualization, identity management, and security.
Whether Novell can truly be a catalyst for making Windows and Linux play happily together remains to be seen, but it’s an effort worth watching.
Novell sparked to life in 1979, choosing headquarters in Provo, Utah over the already tech-heavy Silicon Valley. In its earliest incarnation, Novell was a hardware developer, and a struggling one at that, losing two cofounders in its first few years.
By the mid-1980s, the company’s outlook was much better. Novell introduced NetWare, a multi-platform network operating system, began focusing on creating its own standards, and put considerable energy into file and print services. For a few decades, it went on an acquisition spree, picking up companies like SilverStream Software…
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