Novell Inc has been quietly fretting for several months now about how to regain some of its lost momentum from Microsoft Corp. In an attempt to start winning back some recognition it has decided to give its entire set of applications and services, NetWare and UnixWare excluding, a fresh lick of paint. In an announcement due out in late May, which is more likely to appear in early June, it will re-name, re-brand and re-position existing technologies, including Tuxedo and PerfectOffice, in a move that will also beat a final retreat from the failed AppWare initiative. There will also be several new products and services designed to re-point the company’s application and middleware strategy. The new nomenclature will apparently better describe what the various products actually do. Novell will be hoping it can drag some market share along with mindshare, and is likely to point to Windows NT being used as an application server alongside, rather than as a replacement for, NetWare servers.
