03/20 20:17 Novell, Netscape to form networking software company
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (Reuter) - Novell Inc. and Netscape Communications Corp. plan to announce
an agreement to form a jointly owned network software company that would take on Microsoft Corp. and
International Business Machines Corp.
Company officials said they would announce on Friday that the new company, to be called Novonyx, will
develop a version of Netscape's SuiteSpot package of communication and collaboration software to work
on Novell's Internetware network operating system -- the most popular software product for shuffling
information between computers in corporate networks.
Novonyx's offerings would compete against packages of communication software from Microsoft and
IBM's Lotus Development software division, Novell and Netscape said. Until now, Novell and Netscape
could not on their own offer a complete product line to directly take on their bigger rivals.
``Without a doubt our competition is Microsoft and Lotus,'' said John Paul, Netscape's vice president of
strategic programs. ``We think we'll be quite successful.''
Under the agreement, Novonyx will be set up near Novell's Provo, Utah, headquarters and develop
versions of Netscape products for the Internetware operating system. The products, to be delivered within a
few months, would be distributed by Novell, Paul said.
The companies declined to disclose financial terms. Paul also declined to specify the stake of each company
in Novonyx.
Novell's Internetware program is the core network software at departments in many of the world's biggest
companies using machines linked into networks.
The product has been losing market share to Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, however, partly
because Novell has not been able to develop innovative communication and Internet software on its own.
Netscape, based in Mountain View, Calif., in the past few months has been focusing its efforts on selling
communication software for internal corporate networks, or intranets. Until now, its products did not run on
top of Novell's software. Reut20:17 03-20-97
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