There are at least three companies named Novell, but only one of these is a large one. There is a stream of articles coming from Africa which talk about another (loss-making) company named Novell, which is taken over.

Robertson believes the issue has been blown up by the Democratic Alliance to get at the ANC, insisting that Brimstone was motivated more by civic duty than profit in agreeing to take on Novell, which is situated in the economic and social wasteland of Atlantis outside Cape Town and has yet to turn a profit. He says Brimstone actually overpaid for Novell to match what Wesgro paid the previous owners, and the R3,5m “loss” referred to by the auditor-general actually reflects the operational expenses Wesgro had to carry to keep Novell going.

There is more information to be found here, among other Web sites. Quite a few journalists and/or bloggers have predicted that Novell (the one which we speak about) might be acquired by Microsoft in the future. We've mentioned such articles and posts for almost a year. One reader even tried to provide the far-fetched justification for an argument that Microsoft virtually controls and owns Novell at this stage. That was just a fortnight ago. ⬆