Novell were once a major competitor to Windows as a network operating system with their Netware system. In fact, for many years, and especially before NT became widespread, Netware was the network operating system used for Windows machines.

Recently (comparatively), Novell purchased Ximian and SUSE, both Linux solutions, one for the desktop and one an operating system.

Now, Novell have decided to use SUSE and Ximian for their own internal network and you can read all about the migration process at Linux Planet.