Unix System Laboratories Inc and Novell Inc have completed a definitive joint venture agreement and will be opening the door of the new company, to be called Univel Inc, on Thursday. The company, which is said to have Microsoft Corp worried, will be headquartered in San Jose, California. As previously reported, it will be run by ex-Unix Labs vice-president Joel Applebaum. Univel is intended to be the mass marketing and distribution channel for Destiny, the Unix Labs desktop Unix effort due to be delivered next summer. The product and the venture together will be Unix Labs’ first experience of the binary shrink-wrapped market and it’s hoping to stoke demand for Unix into a true commodity business. With Univel handling the mass market and itself supplying source code to its traditional customer base, Unix Labs will argue that it has achieved the first fully-scalable product line. Univel, which will have some integration responsibilities – marrying Destiny to Novell’s NetWare technology – will approach the market from two levels, supplying Destiny to OEM customers as well.
