Novell (NSDQ:NOVL): The Waltham, Mass.-based software maker has gone through several iterations in its lifetime: from a competitor with Microsoft in the network OS business, to focusing more on collaboration, to a dalliance with WordPerfect (before selling that business to Corel), to buying SuSE and focusing on open source. But over the past several months, Novell has begun to sharpen its focus on cloud computing. Earlier this year, for example, it began touting its Novell Cloud Security Service--which uses broker technology for identity management at both ends of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings. Unlike the earlier days of hosted IT, issues like regulatory compliance must now factor into many enterprise migrations to cloud- or hybrid-based IT. Novell has reinvented itself again, and this time is positioned for the cloud buildout. As one Novell executive put it recently, the company has become an "arms dealer" for cloud computing.
