Novell Dead
Novell
KindCompany
Founded1979
Defunct2014
StatusDead
FoundersDrew Major et al.
FieldNetworking
Sourceen.wikipedia.org ↗
NetWare owned the LAN through the 90s, bought DR-DOS and WordPerfect and Unix rights in turn, then lost every fight to Microsoft. Dissolved through Attachmate and Micro Focus.
1960198020002020
Acquisitions Digital Research
Novell Data Systems (1979) pivoted to NetWare in 1983 — the file-server OS that made PCs share printers and files, owning ~70% of the LAN market at its peak under Ray Noorda's 'coopetition' philosophy.
Noorda spent the 90s buying weapons against Microsoft — WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, Unix itself (USL) — and lost on every front. Attachmate bought Novell in 2011; SUSE and the patents were carved off; the name died by 2014.