In 1983 a failed business in a small Utah town is turned around. Six years later that business is ranked in the Fortune 1000 and the small Utah town becomes the center of a major computer technology.

A young college drop-out, a middle-aged former "beauty technician" and a near-retirement former "company man" become millionaires virtually overnight and lead the creation a major high-tech industry.

A technological innovation so profound that it changes the way the world communicates, yet so esoteric that most people never notice it, is developed in about six months by four young free-lancers trying to put themselves through graduate school.

For sheer amazement, spectacle, drama, and comedy, no work of fiction can surpass the history of Novell, Inc., the Provo, Utah company that rode the crest of a billion dollar industry. Novell's story is a story of stupendous success--of wealth and power, of victory and conquest, and the realization of the dreams of hundreds of individuals. It is also the story of stupendous failure--of fortunes lost, of the mighty overthrown, of scandal and defeat and treachery. It is a story of human beings who risked all, lost all, gained all, and built a business, day in and day out, that has literally changed the world. It is the legend of red-blooded, all-American heroes civilizing a high tech frontier in the 1980's--a legend brought to life by real people.

The story of Novell fascinates on many different levels. It is a study of business enterprise, of people who see a market opportunity and set out to exploit it. It is a lesson in business management--how managers faced first the challenge of business failure, then the greater challenge of dealing with a concept that grew a million-fold in success in ten years. It is a revealing illustration of how new technology is created, marketed, and sold.

Most interesting of all, Novell's story is a tale of the human spirit--of people, like people everywhere, who cherish visions and hopes of what they might become, of what they might achieve, and who embark together on a journey of self-fulfillment. It is a story of how these people help and hurt each other in pursuit of their common and private goals. It is a rich sample of the human experience. Novell's story is an adventure story, as thrilling, in its way, as any ever told or lived.

From its origins in 1980 to the present day, Novell has been a manufacturer of networks that link together personal computers (PCs). Novell's vision, as a company, has been remarkably consistent through two decades of innovation, although the implementation of the vision has changed dramatically. Novell is one of a handful of companies that so successfully rode the technological wave set in motion by the cataclysm of the PC revolution, that they became a recognized industry standard-bearer for a major segment of the personal computing industry: the PC-based local area networks.

A brief history of events leading to PC-based LANs

Computers began their existence as machines of mystery. Computers have been the exclusive domain of computer professionals from the first UNIVAC sold in 1951 through the minicomputers sold in the 1970s. Data Processing (DP) or Managment Information Systems (MIS) departments were the keepers of company computers--which were mainframe or, after 1963, minicomputers. Employees who had jobs for the company computer would typically submit the work with a request form to the MIS administrator, who would return the processed job upon completion. Knowledge of computer operation was highly specialized and beyond the ken of the ordinary person.

With time and declining costs computers became more widespread and familiar. Minicomputers brought a price breakthrough that pulled computers out of giant institutions, such as the Department of Defense, and made their use practical in medium size businesses, large government and university departments. In the late 1970s minicomputers become common in corporations as a solution to department-level data processing needs. Declining price and increasing familiarity allowed companies to automated more and more functions. The digital computers of World War II where used only for computing artillery trajectory tables. The first post-war commercial computers found use as accounting machines and engineering tools for giant tasks. By the seventies medium-sized activities such as word processing telephone books and process controlling chemical operations were also appearing on a large scale. For example, a marketing department might have its own minicomputer that secretaries could access through terminals. Such minicomputer companies as Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), Wang, Control Data, NCR, AT&T, and Vydec prospered in this period.

Although the company's total computer power was a bit more decentralized than it had been in the past, the department-level minicomputers were still centrally administered by the MIS department.

A milestone in computer history was attained in 1969 when Marcian E. Hoff developed the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, a chip containing a miniaturized set of integrated circuits. The microprocessor was the basis of "fourth generation" computers that were developed in the 1970s. (First generation computers used vacuum tubes; second generation used transitors; third generation used integrated circuits; and fourth generation use microprocessors.) The microprocessor also made possible a product that would extend the computer's usefulness by creating an unexpectedly successful product: the microcomputer, later called the personal computer.

In 1975, the year moviegoers flocked to see Jaws and the television program Saturday Night Live premiered, MITS started selling the first commercial personal computer, the Altair. By 1977, Apple, PET, and Radio Shack were also manufacturing PCs. The first personal computers were regarded as toys: the playthings of hardware buffs, programming junkies and the curious.

Conventional wisdom all through the seventies held that playthings was all these microcomputers would ever be, and as a result prototype personal computers at many, many companies in the business of building minicomputers, terminals and other electronics stayed on the shelf. A classic example comes from Sperry Univac in Salt Lake City: one day the engineers needed to test a supplier's ability to provide quality printed circuit boards. They give the supplier a mask for a personal computer motherboard that the engineers had designed in their spare time. The boards came back; were tested; and then became the foundation for their computer club's hobby computer kit.

The toy perception disappeared after VisiCalc hit the market in 1979. Visicalc was the first spreadsheet software for personal computers and it far surpassed in concept and ease-of-use anything comparable on minis or mainframes. It was the piece of software that demonstrated decisively how personal computers would be different from minis and mainframes, and how important "user friendly" was to become in general-purpose computer applications. As accounting, word processing, and other software application programs became available for the small computers in this new user-friendly format, people began to look at PCs as a low-cost computer for the office.

In the early days of PCs, the potential of the technology was enthusiastically pronounced, but only a few visionaries acted to realize that potential. Eventually, said the prophets, every home will have its own PC. Families would use the new appliance for everything from balancing checkbooks to shopping to helping with homework. Data bases around the world could be accessed from every home. People could even vote by punching in a few commands on the family keyboard.

Twenty years later, the promise of a PC in every home is close to being realized, but the hottest area of PC proliferation for more than a decade--the place where PCs have really revolutionized modern life--has been the office. Back in 1975 almost no one predicted that personal computers would take over the office, largely because minicomputers and mainframes were already well-established there.

Personal computers put computing power on the desks of millions of individual employees--and more. They added the power of simple access. Suddenly, individuals had access to word processing, accounting, spreadsheets, graphics, and sophisticated analytical programs--directly and instantly. No MIS department intermediary was required to process work or to control files.

The PC revolution opened the flood gates of computer processing and allowed private citizens to harness the power of computers. The man in the street was enfranchised, and "one man, one computer" was on it's way to becoming a reality in the offices of the developed world.

In 1980 the revolution was on it's way, but another step was needed. Computers users had been given privacy, simplicty and user friendliness by the new personal computer technology, but they also needed access. Users had access to the wide range of application programs, but they needed to share files and have access to data bases held on other computers if they were going to take full advantage of this new technology, and this required networking of some sort.


Why call this a Revolution?

A Revolution is a time of rapid, unpredictable change. The development and acceptance of the personal computer has produced changes in our way of life more radical than even those contemplated by the masses cheering "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" in 1790.

There are fortunes to be made in every revolution--and fortunes to be lost. Change means opportunity to those perceptive, bold, and lucky enough to take the right actions at the right moments.
The first Novell was launched by people with a vision of how they could prosper from the computer revolution underway. This company, Novell Data Systems Inc., failed: It did not catch the wave of technology but was sucked under and squashed by it. The second Novell did rather better and is still riding the crest of the wave.

The Burning Questions

Why did one Novell die while another rose Phoenix-like from its ashes? Why do some visions succeed while others fail? What combination of people is necessary to create a winning technology--and from there a winning company? Can lessons be derived from Novell's experience so that the phenomenon of Novell can be repeated in other industries, or predicted more accurately?

The answers to such questions, if answers exist, are elusive. Before we can speculate about why Novell is a success, we have to determine what happened. This is more difficult than one might think, even though the Novell story spans scarcely two decades. Each player saw a different piece of the story from a unique perspective, and the rush of events was so dizzying for the central characters that memories have already blurred or faded. Many of those who were in a position to see the big picture are still chasing the technology and lack the time and the inclination to discuss the past. A few are discouraged and trying to put the past behind them.

The Cypher

At the core of the Novell story is Ray Noorda, the man who discovered a kernel of greatness in a moribund operation and, from it, grew a company and an industry. Although he speaks frankly and usually sincerely, although he is a public figure whose contributions to the computer industry are well-known, Ray is a cipher even to those who work closely with him. There is an irreducible, indefinable, unfathomable quality to the man--there is a Lincolnesque aspect to his personality. A folksy manner belies a superior, probing intelligence; one does not expect to find in this paragon of homespun virtue a master strategist and a relentless, sometimes reckless entrepreneur. Like Lincoln, Noorda is often underestimated by those who deal with him. As with Lincoln, opinions of Noorda vary widely. To some he is "wily" or "slippery"; some of his key managers describe him as "a moody little son of a bitch." Others revere him as a father or benefactor--"a great man with a great heart." A few of his most ungenerous critics consider him merely lucky. But most people in the computer industry agree that Ray is a good man of business. Even his harshest detractors acknowledge that he works exceptionally hard and that he is an entrepreneur in the purest sense of the word.

Entertainment and Closure

Some may wonder what possible use a history of a company might serve. Entertainment, for one: Novell's is a crackling good story. Education, for another: To understand the present-day Novell and its flagship product, NetWare, it is useful to understand where the company came from.

Then too, there are the employees, past and present. Novell is probably the only company in the world with a semi-organized alumni association, called LAN--Life After Novell. Working at Novell in the eighties has been perhaps the most frustrating, irritating, anxiety-producing career experience that Information Age pioneers will ever suffer through, and yet it is an exhilharating and rewarding experience. Novell has been a place where colossal mistakes were made, where colossal achievements were forged, where some dreams flourished and others died, where lasting friendships were sealed, and where the world was transformed. You felt that you were part of something that mattered when you worked at Novell, and few people who passed through its doors were worse off for the experience. For the great numbers of Novellians currently in and out of the company, a history may provide a sense of closure and an opportunity to reflect on what has been, for all, a great adventure.

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