Editing NetWare (section)

=== Strategic mistakes ===
NetWare was very successful. [[International Data Corporation]] (IDC) reported in 1988 a 53% market share for it among network operating systems, compared to 17.1% for [[MS-Net]] and 8.5% for [[AppleTalk]]. While no dominant technology or vendor of PC networking hardware existed, IDC noted that NetWare was used regardless of hardware "including a significant amount of IBM gear".<ref name=didio19880711>{{cite magazine |first=Laura |last=DiDio |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MRMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA17 |title=Study finds NetWare to be OS of choice |magazine=[[Network World]] |date=11 July 1988 |page=17}}</ref> ''PC'' estimated in 1989 that version &nbsp;286&nbsp;2.''x'' had 40-60% of the network operating system market, while LAN Manager "has made a very small impression on the market"; both 3Com and IBM admitted that they sold more networking cards for use with NetWare than with their own software.<ref name="pc19891212">{{Cite magazine |last=Derfler |first=Frank J. Jr. |last2=Thompson |first2=M. Keith |date=1989-12-12 |title=Novell's NetWare 386 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5CmkZ3THZtwC&pg=PT206#v=onepage&q&f=true |access-date=2025-05-02 |magazine=PC Magazine |page=205 |volume=8 |issue=21}}</ref> Before the arrival of [[Windows&nbsp;NT]] Server, Novell claimed 90% of the market for PC based servers.

However, unlike its predecessor NetWare&nbsp;3.''x'' uses a DOS partition to load NetWare server files, and cannot boot from the Novell partition NetWare 286 creates. While NetWare 386 boots much faster,{{r|pc19891212}} and of little technical import,{{efn|DOS merely loaded NetWare into memory and turned execution over to it. In later versions, DOS could be unloaded from RAM.}} this feature became a liability due to the system administration it required. Compounding this, the NetWare console remained text-based at a time the Windows graphical interface gained widespread acceptance. New users preferred the Windows graphical interface to learning DOS commands necessary to build and control a NetWare server.
Novell could have eliminated at least the separately bootable DOS partition requirement at the outset, by retaining the design of NetWare&nbsp;286. Novell finally added support for this in a Support Pack for NetWare&nbsp;6.5.

As Novell initially used [[IPX/SPX]] instead of [[TCP/IP]], they were poorly positioned to take advantage of the Internet in 1995.  This resulted in Novell servers being bypassed for routing and Internet access in favor of hardware routers, [[Unix]]-based operating systems such as [[FreeBSD]], and SOCKS and HTTP [[Proxy server|Proxy Servers]] on Windows and other operating systems.{{Citation needed|date=July 2007}}

A decision by the management of Novell also took away the ability of independent resellers and engineers to recommend and sell the product. The reduction of their effective sales force created this downward spiral in sales.