If IBM’s relationship with Microsoft Corp seems somewhat strained following the revelations of Microsoft’s change of direction over OS/2 recently, things may not be improved by an expected announcement from IBM at Boston’s NetWorld ’91 show this week. IBM is set to announce plans to take Portable NatWare from Novell Inc for the AS/400 and RS/6000. The move is official recognition on IBM’s part that it must recognise and co-exist with Novell NetWare users in the world of local area networks, despite the competing IBM/Microsoft LAN Manager products. Novell has taken responsibility for the AS/400 implementation of NetWare, and has been working on it for the past two years. IBM is doing the RS/6000 version itself. And IBM is also expected to add NetWare Loadable Modules to its MVS-based mainframes, enabling them to act as Novell NetWare servers.
