Recently, rumors regarding Novell's plans for acquiring or partnering with Linux companies in China and Asia were circulating, and now there is talk of Novell expanding its developer team in Asia as well.

One of the key challenges facing Mr Koster is to leverage the limited number of people that Novell has in the region, to grow its business. Novell currently has about 700 staff in the Asia-Pacific region, of which 300 are involved in development work in its software development centres in China and India.

'The plan is to add another 300 staff to the development team,' said Mr Koster. 'We will also be expanding our presence in Singapore in the form of setting up more training and briefing centres in the coming year.'