Novell, Netscape to form network software company
Reuters Story - March 21, 1997 00:01
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif, March 21 (Reuter) - Novell Inc
and Netscape Communications Corp on Friday
said they agreed to form a jointly owned networking software
company that would take on Microsoft Corp and
International Business Machines Corp .
The new company, 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 PCs in corporate networks.
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 serves as the networking
software foundation of departments within many of the world's
biggest companies.
Novonyx's offerings would compete against packages of
communication software from Microsoft and IBM's Lotus
Development Corp software division, Novell and Netscape said.
Until now, Novell and Netscape could not on their own offer a
complete product line to 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."
The product has lost 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 focused 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. |
