Provo, Utah-based Novell Inc is making another infilling acquisition with definitive agreement to acquire Software Transformation Inc, Cupertino, California for 800,000 new Novell shares, valuing the company at some $25.8m. Software Transformation’s technology provides a framework of software programming tools that is claimed to transcend differences in graphical user interfaces and varied operating system characteristics such as memory allocation and file systems so that applications need be developed only once to run on a variety of systems – currently Apple Computer Inc’s Macintosh, Microsoft Corp’s Windows, Novell and Univel Inc’s UnixWare and Unixes from Digital Equipment Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc, with versions for OS/2, AIX and NT on the way. The basis is a standard set of application programming interfaces and object classes to provide an application framework across the major operating systems. The tools are designed to provide developers with a superset of features from the varied operating systems, so that they gain the value of unique operating system characteristics, yet still deliver portable applications – for example, a common programming interface set enables a programmer to write a single application that supports the Macintosh, OSF/Motif, Presentation Manager, Windows, or future graphical user interfaces. The Universal Component System application development environment has been shipping since March 1992 at $3,500 to $10,000.
