Novell

Novell had some made inroads into the Linux business with its acquisition of Germany's SuSE Linux in 2004, and its now well-positioned for the next phase of growth.

Despite the dismissal of two top executives in June this year for failing to bring the company up to speed, Novell remains convinced that its strategy of providing a road map to Linux and open-source software--particularly for NetWare customers and partners--will reap results.

In May, Novell became one of the first Linux vendors to incorporate the Xen open-source virtualization software in its SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10. This will allow Novell's NetWare and Linux to run at the same time on company servers.

The company is also gunning for a piece of the Linux desktop pie with SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 that is easily one of the most polished desktop distributions to date. Novell is also moving into other markets such as identify management and real-time operating systems.

Novell ranks among ZDNet Asia's Top 10 fastest-growing companies for 2006/07.