Ray Noorda, chairman of Novell Inc, and Unix System Laboratories Inc chief Roel Pieper visited Japan at the end of last week in an attempt to reassure shareholders and customers of their respective organisations, already, if not soon to become, joint shareholders, that life was proceeding as normal and that the future of Unix as the industry has known it was in good hands. The press conferences held in Tokyo was long on reassurances and short on details of how the companies will operate post-merger. According to Novell, the main benefits of the merger will be apparent in the increased quality of product and service and the stronger financial base of the resources available for the development of the System V.4 brand of Unix, as well as the synergy of customer service offerings in the education and training areas. While Roel Pieper recognised that there had been some negative reaction to the merger both from Unix Labs employees and Unix Labs shareholders, as well as Unix International Inc members, he said that this was merely a human reaction to change and he felt confident that their talks in Japan and to Unix Labs members had a been able to address the concerns of Japanese customers regarding the Japanese market. Particular concerns were that there would be a level playing field with regard to technology access and specifications, and that fair licensing policies would be followed. According to chairman Noorda, Novell has no plans to move Unix Labs headquarters from New Jersey to Utah; rather the two companies’ respective strengths in the East and West Coast would count as advantages in the future; even now in fact they were geographically separate, but mentally close. The situation as regards the merger of their two respective companies in Japan Unix Labs Pacific and Novell KK – is more complicated – so complicated that Noorda said he would need lawyers – anathema to the Japanese – involved even to discuss it. Currently four Japanese companies are shareholders in Unix Labs – Fujitsu Ltd, NEC Corp, Oki Electric Industry Co and Toshiba Corp – and some of the same companies – Fujitsu, NEC, Toshiba – are shareholders in Novell KK, Novell’s Japanese subsidiary. Noorda suggested that while it had yet to be decided, these companies’ shares in Unix Labs would be exchanged for Novell shares.
Co-optition
Regarding the anticipated competition in the market between Microsoft Corp’s Windows NT and Unix, Noorda coined a new word, co-opetition – co-operation and competition – to describe the new culture. He reagrds Microsoft NT as good for the market since it will focus the market more on rightsizing and permit competition at a technological level, where Novell is confident of its capabilities. Noorda says that Novell is acutely aware of the history of Unix and its penetration into government and industry over the past 20 years. However he thinks that development of the operating system as an application server will be accelerated thanks to Novell’s participation, with Unix evolving to a broader market with additional features and capabilities, including links with NetWare. The involvement of Unix International as a body that codifies requirements specifications will remain the same, although Unix International will also be going outside its traditional member-suppliers for sources of technologies. This was welcomed by the head of the Open Software Foundation in Japan, Dr Rob Morel, who ventured that possibly the Foundation was better positioned than before as a truly independent standards organisation. According to Noorda, Novell also feels it has a role to play in unifying the industry; currently there are too many Unixes says Noorda, and he hopes to work with Novell’s OEM customers in both joint marketing efforts of the current Unix Labs software line and development of specific hardware to work with new products. Japanese members of Unix International, whose opinions on the merger were canvassed at the Tokyo announcement of Unix International’s Roadmap on Tuesday last week, were in various minds in their support of t
he new ownership of Unix Labs. Most said that they had been surprised if not totally taken aback on the news of the merger; but to various degrees said that they were prepared to work with the new ownership as long as the guarantees of openness and neutrality made by Novell regarding the development of System V.4 were maintained. However the representatives of NEC and Fujitsu reserved comment, saying that they had not received official notice of their position and that they looked to the future to reveal this. One can only hope that in their visits to these firms over the last few days, Ray Noorda and Roel Pieper were sufficiently persuasive.
