ronutz
← All vendors

Vendor lineage

Novell - the network operating system

NetWare owned the LAN era and IPX ran the world's offices; the lineage ended at OpenText in 2023.

Before TCP/IP won, the corporate network spoke IPX and logged into NetWare - and an entire profession grew up around Novell certifications. The company that defined the network operating system then spent two decades searching for a second act: UnixWare, WordPerfect, SUSE, the Microsoft pact, and a chain of acquisitions ending at OpenText in 2023.

The profile below is LAN-era history in full: Ray Noorda's coopetition, the Utah empire, and the long unwinding.

Founding stories

1983

Novell

Provo, Utah · Founders: Ray Noorda (reorganizing Novell Data Systems, f. 1979)

Before TCP/IP won, the office network spoke IPX and logged into NetWare. Ray Noorda took over a struggling Utah hardware startup in 1983, threw away the hardware, and bet on software that made a PC into a file server - and NetWare became the operating system of the LAN era itself, at its peak running the majority of the world's office networks. Noorda coined 'coopetition,' funded half the industry's plumbing, and built a certification culture - the CNE - that trained a generation of network engineers, this site's author's era included.

The timeline

  1. NetWare ships

    Noorda's reorganized Novell releases the network operating system: file and print services over IPX/SPX that turn PC islands into offices - the product the LAN decade runs on.

  2. NDS, and the Unix gambit

    NetWare Directory Services ships a global directory years ahead of its rivals - while Novell buys Unix System Laboratories from AT&T, acquiring the Unix copyrights whose later disposition fuels the SCO litigation saga of the 2000s.

  3. The WordPerfect mistake

    The ~$855 million WordPerfect acquisition tries to build a Microsoft-scale rival and fails at speed - sold to Corel in 1996 as NetWare's own franchise comes under Windows NT siege.

  4. The Linux pivot: SUSE

    Novell buys SUSE and Ximian, remaking itself as an enterprise-Linux company; the controversial 2006 Microsoft interoperability pact defines its final independent act.

  5. Into the consolidators

    Attachmate acquires Novell for ~$2.2 billion, separating SUSE; Micro Focus swallows Attachmate in 2014 - NetWare's descendants become maintenance-mode products in an acquirer's portfolio.

  6. The last flag: OpenText

    January 31, 2023: OpenText completes its acquisition of Micro Focus - the final corporate resting place of the lineage that once ran the world's LANs.

    OpenText close per the deal record.

Flagship products and solutions

  • NetWareTHE network operating system of the LAN era - file, print, and later directory services that defined what a server was.
  • NDS / eDirectoryThe directory service that beat Active Directory to market by seven years - identity's LAN-era ancestor.
  • IPX/SPXThe protocol suite an entire generation configured before TCP/IP swept the field.

Key innovations

  • The network OS categoryNovell defined the server as a product category and the LAN as an administered thing - the job description of the network administrator is substantially Novell's invention.
  • Certification as an industryThe CNE program built the template - curriculum, exams, career ladder - that every vendor certification since, this site's teaching world included, descends from.

Main markets

Novell's markets were absorbed by Windows Server and TCP/IP; its directory heritage persists in niches under OpenText, and its true legacy is the certified-professional culture the whole industry now runs on.

Analyst standing

  • The undisputed leader of the network-OS evaluations for a decade - then the textbook case of a category king losing the platform war above its category.