Novell spins off Volera

By Deni Connor
Network World Fusion, 02/02/01

PROVO, UTAH - Novell Friday announced that it's spinning off its Net Content group into a separate company called Volera.

As first reported in Network World, the new company will market and develop Novell's Internet Caching System (ICS) and Content Exchange, its products for speeding the delivery of Internet content.

Volera will be majority backed by Novell, with investments from Nortel Networks and Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting). In exchange for equity positions, Novell, Nortel and Accenture will provide Volera with over $80 million in cash, as well as consulting services. Novell also will contribute technology and resources from its Net Content division.

ICS is a set of software and hardware designs the company has OEM'ed to system manufacturers such as Dell and Compaq. Content Exchange is a hosted service that speeds the delivery of content from a Web server to the Internet by intelligently and dynamically preparing Web content for distribution to users over content delivery networks.

Volera estimates it holds a 17% share of the worldwide market for cache appliances, based on cache appliance shipments by Dell, Compaq and other OEMs that license ICS, the company said. During 2001, Volera plans to offer content management and streaming media services.

Simon Khalaf, former vice president and general manager of Novell's Net Content division, is Volera's president. Novell CEO Eric Schmidt has been named Volera's chairman of the board; additional board members include Novell COO Stewart Nelson and Chief Financial Officer Dennis Raney, as well as individuals from Nortel and Accenture.

Drew Major, former chief scientist and chief technology officer for the Net Content division, has been appointed CTO of Volera. Major is the designer of ICS and an original designer of NetWare.

Volera - a name taken from the French verb "to fly" - is headquartered in San Jose, with additional offices in Orem, Utah and Berkeley Heights, N.J.

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