After the phenomenal growth and market leadership in networking, founder and CEO Ray Noorda made a frontal attack on the strengths of Microsoft in the nucleus. In 1994, Noorda spend over $ 1.5 billion acquisition of companies such as WordPerfect against Microsoft Word, products such as Quattro Pro from Borland against Microsoft Excel, a PC operating system against Microsoft MS-DOS. Novell shares reached a high of $ 35 1/4 March 1993 before sliding down as head-to-head competition with Microsoft was seen as a questionable strategy. Robert Frankenberg, Hewlett-Packard executive brought in replacing Ray Noorda, reversed course and sold many of the acquired companies. But as time goes by Novell. Microsoft has not only won the head-to-head competition, but was set to counter with NT server product that was quick to undermine the strength of Novell network operating systems (CMS). On the basis of only 2 per cent of the market share in 1993 to 1997 from Microsoft NT Server operating license sales unit was 997 million growing at 36 per cent, compared to Novell NetWare server operating license for Unit sales 744 million growing at 13 percent . In early 1997, the stock price of the company Novell dropped to $ 7. "Hide
by Richard L. Nolan Source: Harvard Business School 15 pages. Publication Date: September 21, 1999. Prod. #: 300038-PDF-ENG
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