Sweeping changes blow through Novell's board

SOFTWARE HOUSE and recent acquisition target Novell has announced some changes at the top and a commitment to its existing portfolio of products.

Bob Flynn will lead the firm as president and general manager and oversee its move back to its Utah headquarters. Joining him are Dave Wilkes, who is VP for engineering, and Eric Varness, who is VP for product management and marketing. We'll expect to hear a lot from him.

Novell, which is now part of Attachmate and has a whole new reason to exist, plans to 'refocus' and 'rededicate' on the end user and the software that it uses.

"Our customers' success depends on having the flexibility they need to maintain existing technology investments while adopting new technologies to meet their evolving business needs and requirements," said Flynn.

"By further developing and supporting the Novell collaboration and endpoint management solutions, Novell will better enable customers to provision, manage and secure the devices, applications, and files used to improve workforce productivity."

Plans include an extension of support for Netware as users upgrade to Open Enterprise Server, as well as continued support for Novell Groupwise and Novell ZENworks.

Novell was welcomed into the Attachmate fold at the end of last month, with a price tag of $2.2bn. µ