Novell had already formed a partnership with SiteScape in 2007 to add to its collaboration portfolio with Novell Teaming + Conferencing, a team workspace and real-time conferencing offering centered on ICEcore open source technology.

Novell said the addition of SiteScape’s workspace and real-time collaboration capabilities will enablee it to offer open, enterprise-strength collaboration, and social networking offerings.

Ron Hovsepian, president and chief executive at Novell, said: The acquisition of SiteScape fits squarely into the corporate strategy we have laid out. It extends our leadership in promoting open source in the enterprise market and is a key technology addition in an area where we see great growth potential. Most importantly, it allows us to move aggressively to give customers a new, open option for collaboration, helping them escape vendor lock-in and offering easy integration across platforms, whether Linux or Windows.