Novell Inc’s plans to acquire WordPerfect Corp, perhaps motivated in part by their similar Mormon cultures, were an incredibly closely-guarded secret. Top-ranking Novell officials, even people that are going to have to manage the merger, were completely uninformed of what was going on, and could only speculate after our sister paper Unigram.X indicated at the beginning of last week that something was afoot. Rumour has it some of the top staffers were told only at the eleventh hour, after they were gathered in a room and the doors locked. Several commentators, in newspapers such as the San Jose Mercury News have questioned the wisdom of the move and there is concern over Novell’s valuation of Wordperfect, although as it’s an all-paper deal and the terms won’t be improved regardless of how low the Novell share price goes, it is not actually causing any drain on Novell’s cash resources. Speculation in the industry is that Novell will now consolidate in Utah and close down its San Jose operation and that there will now be a brain drain at WordPerfect. WordPerfect’s president is also being touted as a possible successor to Ray Noorda.
