Novell

Attachmate acquires Novell for $2.2 billion

Novell, a software company that rose to power along with Intel-based computers but failed to keep up with rivals such as Microsoft and Red Hat, announced today an end to its independence with a Microsoft-boosted $2.2 billion acquisition by Attachmate.

Under the agreement, privately held Attachmate will pay $6.10 per share for Novell, a 9 percent premium over Friday's closing price of $5.59 and a 28 percent premium over the last public trading day before Elliott Associates made an offer of $5.75 per share in March. Novell rejected that offer.

Microsoft's interest, though, apparently helped make a deal happen this time around. Novell is selling "certain intellectual property assets to CPTN Holdings LLC, a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft," for $450 million in cash that's part of the payment through Attachmate.

According to a regulatory filing, CPTN will get 882 Novell patents: "Also on November 21, 2010, Novell entered into a Patent Purchase Agreement...with CPTN Holdings LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft Corporation. The Patent Purchase Agreement provides that, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Patent Purchase Agreement, Novell will sell to CPTN all of Novell's right, title and interest in 882 patents...for $450 million in cash."

Attachmate, which is run by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, and Thoma Bravo, describes itself as a company that "enables IT organizations to extend mission-critical services and assures they are managed, secure, and compliant."

"We believe this transaction is great news for our customers. Novell has a long history of innovation and market leadership, and this tradition will be preserved and built upon through this transaction," Novell Chief Executive Ron Hovsepian told customers in an e-mail about the deal.

Novell rose to success through sales of its NetWare operating system, widely used in the 1990s on Intel servers to run services used by PCs running Microsoft's DOS and Windows operating systems. It also sold higher-level server software for functions such as e-mail and, for a time, the commercial rights to AT&T's Unix and the WordPerfect suite of software that competed with Microsoft Office. … Read more

New e-paper begins chapter for color e-readers

E-book readers that use e-ink are getting a splash of color, courtesy of a new e-paper technology.

Display maker E Ink announced today the release of its new color e-paper, called E Ink Triton, which will offer e-book makers a way to add color to their e-ink devices. The new technology will make its debut with a color e-book reader set to be released in China next March by Chinese e-reader vendor Hanvon, an E Ink representative told CNET.

"E Ink Triton marks a major milestone in the e-book revolution," Hanvon's Chairman Liu Yingjian said in a statement. "E Ink has the right technology, manufacturing capability, and know-how to transition Hanvon's product vision into reality. With E Ink Triton technology, Hanvon is enabled to release the world's first [e-ink-reliant] color e-book reader today."

The new e-paper is being geared to show off a variety of applications and content, including charts, graphs, maps, photos, comics and, of course, advertisements. Screens using the new Triton e-ink can display thousands of colors, as well as 16 levels of gray scale, according to E Ink. The text and color graphics are also designed to be fully viewable in direct sunlight and are maintained on the screen, even when the device power is turned off.

E Ink is touting the speed of its new electronic paper, claiming that displays made with Triton can perform up to 20 percent faster than ones made with older e-ink technology.… Read more

Digital Dead Sea Scrolls

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

HP announces the Palm Pre 2 and a new operating system WebOS 2.0

Xbox.com gets a makeover with some new features

Microsoft launches Office 365

Target lets you print your Facebook photos at the store

Barnes and Noble may be getting a new Nook ready to launch

Pandigital launches a new eReader called the Novel

Google is tasked with digitizing the Dead Sea Scrolls

And don't miss CNET's live blogging of the Apple conference today where we believe new MacBooks are on the way! If you do miss it, … Read more

Pandigital introduces second Novel e-reader

After getting off to a shaky start with its first e-reader, a color reading device called the Novel, Pandigital is taking a second stab with a monochrome e-ink model that has built-in Wi-Fi, a touch-screen interface, and a direct link to the Barnes & Noble eBookstore. The Novel 6-inch Personal eReader carries a list price of $200, but we suspect that the street price may be slightly less when it ships later this month.

Here are the key specs:

6-inch ePaper electrophoretic display (made by Sipex/AUO) with 800x600-pixel resolution and 16-level grayscale Measures 6.75 inches long by 4.… Read more

Report: VMware eyeing Novell's Suse

VMware is reportedly looking to acquire Novell's Suse Linux OS unit in a move that would give it a full stack of enterprise software.

According to The Wall Street Journal, VMware is in talks to buy Novell's Suse unit as the company is split in two. Netware and Novell's other assets would be sold to private equity firm Attachmate.

The real fireworks, however, would be over VMware acquiring Suse. Last quarter, Novell executives made it quite clear that the company was getting cozy with VMware much to the chagrin of partner Microsoft.

Meet Novell's new best friend: VMware

Novell has a new best friend when it comes to Suse Linux distribution: VMware.

If you recall, Novell's former best friend for Suse Linux was Microsoft. Microsoft and Novell have a partnership where the two parties had certificates that indemnified Suse users from any intellectual-property liability. In addition, Microsoft officially recommended Suse Linux Enterprise for hybrid Windows/Linux shops.

Now that the sales pop from the Novell-Microsoft partnership has played out, Suse Linux growth has stagnated. In Novell's fiscal third-quarter report, released Thursday, the company said Linux platform product revenue was $36 million, down 7 percent from a … Read more

Pandigital's Android e-reader is 'hobbled'

If you know of Pandigital, you probably know it for its photo frames. However, the company is moving into the hot e-book reader market with a device that a lot of people have been waiting for: an affordable color-screen e-book reader with ties to a major bookseller.

Integrated with the Barnes & Noble's e-book store, the Pandigital Novel is an Android-powered e-book reader that has a full-color 7-inch touch-screen display, Wi-Fi connectivity, and multimedia capabilities. On the surface, this all sounds pretty good and when we first saw a picture of it it, we thought it looked a lot … Read more

Judge deals possibly final blow to SCO over Linux

SCO's long-running campaign against Linux may have finally been dealt a death blow.

Late Thursday, the judge presiding over the company's legal battle with Novell rejected SCO's request for a new trial and upheld an April jury decision that determined Novell, not SCO, is the rightful owner of key Unix copyrights.

"SCO argues that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law because the 'verdict cannot be squared with the overwhelming evidence and the law,'" Judge Ted Stewart wrote in his decision. "The Court respectfully disagrees. The jury found Novell's version … Read more

VMware teams up with Novell on Suse Linux

VMware will standardize its virtual appliance-based products on Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server, a move intended to help ward off a growing threat from Microsoft.

Under the partnership, announced this week, customers buying certain vSphere licenses will be eligible to receive a subscription to Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) patches and updates for SLES instances deployed in vSphere virtual machines. The companies are also working to make it easier to port SLES-based virtual machines across clouds.

VMware offers virtual appliances--self-contained virtual machines preconfigured with an OS and the application--as a way of making them easier to deploy and maintain. … Read more

E-readers seek frame and fortune

Before the iPad, it was often said that there has never been a successful electronics device in a screen size between the cell phone and the laptop. Indeed, the form factor and functionality of such devices have been tough nuts to crack, but there have been a few successes.

While the most widely adopted of these was the so-called "portable" DVD player embraced by many top-tier consumer electronics brands, a more modest success story has been the digital picture frame.

Cleverly branded, overgrown multimedia players that had undergone battery removal surgery, the digital picture frame was a star … Read more