Novell Launches New Content Delivery Venture, Volera

Novell (www.novell.com) made a leap into the content delivery space by forming a new company called Volera. The venture is backed by top-notch companies, including Nortel and Accenture. The agreements between Novell, Nortel Networks and Accenture call for the firms to provide Volera over $80 million in cash, as well as consulting services.

Volera's mission is to integrate caching and content management services in order to speed delivery of content over the Internet. That includes support for regular Web traffic, as well as streaming media.

"This is a defining deal for our industry and Novell," said Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer of Novell. "The market has been looking for new platforms to deploy next generation Internet services and applications. With Nortel Networks and Accenture, we have the right partners to bring our highly competitive new platform to market. At Novell, we see Volera capturing early leadership in the rapidly developing Internet content networking market, one of the most promising on the Net."

"We are entering the content networking segment with great products, established distribution and partnerships, strong funding, and a complete team," said Simon Khalaf, president of Volera. "Our products and services set the industry standard in terms of speed, scalability and flexibility, while also offering end-to-end management capabilities that today's Internet customers demand," he added.

Accenture said it has been working with Novell and the Volera staff for over six months in planning Volera's initial Internet content services offering and will continue to rely on Accenture.

Eric Schmidt has been named Volera's chairman of the board, while Simon Khalaf, formerly general manager of the Novell Net Content Group, has been named president. Drew Major, formerly chief scientist and chief technology officer for the Net Content Group, has been appointed chief technology officer of Volera. The new company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with additional offices in Orem, Utah and Berkeley Heights, N.J.