Editing Novell (section)

====Tools: AppWare====
In June 1993, Novell purchased Serius Corp., a firm that made a [[graphical programming language]] that could construct applications by connecting together icons representing objects in the program and their commands.<ref name="Cox_2000"/> Novell also purchased Software Transformations Inc., who made a cross-platform object code library that could be used to port conventional programs to a number of platforms.<ref name="Gillooly_1993"/> The disparate technologies of the two products were combined and renamed to [[AppWare]], with the Serius product being called AppWare Visual AppBuilder, the objects it used AppWare Loadable Modules, and the Software Transformations library  AppWare Foundation. The organization working on this was called the AppWare Systems Group.<ref name="DH_WordPerfect_1994"/> The founder of Serius, Joe Firmage, became vice president of strategy for Novell's Network Systems Group.<ref name="CNET_Firmage_2003"/>

AppWare was one of the three main strategic focuses of Novell during this period, along with NetWare and UnixWare.<ref name="NW_Prongs_1993"/> These three prongs were intended to satisfy the growing need for scalable, distributed computing at the enterprise level of applications such as general ledger systems or reservation systems; as Novell executive Jim Tolonen outlined: "[NetWare] being the underlying infrastructure over which those mission critical transactions will be moved, Unix [being] a place on which the applications can run, and AppWare as tools that will help programmers write that class of application in a distributed environment."<ref name="NW_Prongs_1993"/>

It was not long before the AppWare plans started to fall apart. In September 1994 Novell announced they would be selling the Appware Foundation product to a third party. Novell did state that development of Visual AppBuilder would continue, and a Unix port would be following (that did not materialize). Novell also continued to release a number of new Appware Loadable Modules.<ref name="Mace_1994"/> But overall, as ''[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]'' magazine wrote in early 1995 about the three-pronged strategy, these "unrelated ... families of products formed an unsteady tripod".<ref name="Byte_cover_1995"/>

Joe Firmage became disillusioned with Novell in mid-1995, following its decision to sell UnixWare and abandon the SuperNOS project, and left Novell later that year.<ref name="CNET_Firmage_2003"/> Novell then publicly stated in November 1995 that it was looking for a buyer for AppWare.<ref name="IW_AppWare_1995"/> In March 1996, it was announced (based on an agreement that had been signed the month before) that Novell had sold all rights to the AppWare technology to a new company called Network Multimedia Inc., which was headed by Ed Firmage, who had been director of AppWare marketing at Novell.<ref name="PR_AppWare_1996"/>