In a move that will make it the world's third-largest software company, Novell has announced it is buying WordPerfect Corp. and acquiring Borland's Quattro Pro. With the acquisitions, Novell propelled itself behind Microsoft and Oracle in terms of sales. The move clearly puts Novell head-to-head with Microsoft on almost all application and operating-system fronts.
On the desktop-publishing front, Adobe and Aldus announced a planned merger. Both companies will continue to sell their individual software products--Adobe focusing on Postscript and Aldus on Pagemaker.
And what's a merger party without Microsoft_McCaw Cellular and Microsoft have announced plans to form a new company called Teledesic to build a $9 billion global satellite-communications network. The ambitious system would be based on 840 low-orbiting satellites providing telephone, video conferencing, and imaging services.