Rumours circulating last week had it that Novell Inc may have found a partner to help it with the development of SuperNOS, the promised UnixWare-NetWare combination it desperately wishes had some other name. Sources inside the Novell hierarchy, terrorised by a strict security cordon, would admit to no details, leaving outsiders to speculate idly on names such as Intel Corp and even former Unix owner AT&T Corp. Also resurfacing was gossip that Novell is ensconced in talks with IBM Corp that could involve it following Lotus Development Corp into the Armonk maw. Digital Equipment Corp folk, for instance, swore last week that the two were off concocting something. If so, the Janus-like SuperNOS might take on another face, to wit, OS/2. Novell already has what it calls the Gemini project, or NetWare for OS/2, which enables the two environments to co-reside on a single machine, set for next year. Maybe it will just substitute OS/2 for UnixWare. Speculation has it that the Unix question is holding any such deal at bay for either of two reasons: first, that like its deliberations with Apple Computer Inc, IBM is concerned that having Unix would be like hanging on to the past rather than buying into the future; and second, that holding Unix will not go down well with the rest of the Unix community. In which case maybe Unix could get put back into a separate company that would have not just IBM and Novell owning it. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard Co vice-president Bernard Guidon said that before the SuperNOS partner rumour surfaced, his company would only have been interested SuperNOS if Novell had decided to make it into a groupware system that could balance the IBM-Lotus integration. Even then, Hewlett-Packard seemed indifferent about co-development. Still, one could suppose that it could be brought in, despite its own hesitations, if its buddy Intel was keen. There have been any number of reports lately that Intel is pursuing a course that will see it go headlong into house-brand box development in competition with its customers – a move that would surely have Compaq Computer Corp up in arms. Meantime, Novell’s schedule calls for a NetWorld+Interop announcement – with pre-briefings a week earlier at Unix Expo later this month. It has been looking for a SuperNOS partner since January when a deal with AT&T Global Information Solutions crashed and burned, although it subsequently claimed that discussions were continuing. The NetWorld+Interop presentation is promised to outline the sketchy SuperNOS road-map in which Eiger, or UnixWare 2.1, expected later this year, gives way to SuperNOS, apparently and perhaps suggestively known as NU7 in some internal overhead foils, in 1997. There should also be information on the company’s nascent object strategy. It appears there is no planned NetWare release beyond the current 4.0 offering. Of course, if it were to submit quietly to being acquired, the new Novell business plan – presumably absent an IBM – could go by the board. Word from inside has it that SuperNOS development, widely regarded as far from certain to come to fruition, is on track. Whatever Novell has up its sleeve, insiders were gung-ho about it, though they doubted Novell could deliver on all its promises.
