  netware is a computer network operating system developed by novell, inc. it initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the ipx network protocol. the original netware product in 1983 supported clients running both cp/m and ms-dos, ran over a proprietary star network topology and was based on a novell-built file server using the motorola 68000 processor, but the company soon moved away from building its own hardware, and netware became hardware-independent, running on any suitable intel-based ibm pc compatible system, and a wide range of network cards. from the beginning netware implemented a number of features inspired by mainframe and minicomputer systems that were not available in its competitors. in the early 1990s, novell introduced separate cheaper networking products, unrelated to classic netware. these were netware&nbsp;lite&nbsp;1.0 (nwl), and later personal&nbsp;netware&nbsp;1.0 (pnw) in 1993. in 1993 the main product line took a dramatic turn when version 4 introduced netware directory services (nds), a global directory service similar to microsoft's active directory released seven years later. this, along with a new e-mail system, groupwise, application configuration suite, zenworks, and security product bordermanager were all targeted at the needs of large enterprises. by 2000 however, microsoft was making increasing inroads into novell's customer base and novell increasingly looked to a future based on a linux kernel. the successor product to netware, open enterprise server, was released in march 2005. oes offered all the services previously hosted by netware v6.5, but with the choice of delivering those services using either a netware v6.5 or suse linux enterprise server v9 kernel. == history == netware evolved from a very simple concept: file sharing instead of disk sharing. in 1983 when the first versions of netware originated, all other competing products were based on the concept o
1983_software Network_operating_systems Novell_NetWare Novell_operating_systems Proprietary_software X86_operating_systems