It's been a while in the coming but now Novell is finally being sold off. The company is to be bought by Attachmate for US$2.2 billion. For many the move is unsurprising: Novell has been on the back foot for some time now and its flirtation with Linux served only to delay its final end. Once a company at the centre of the networking world, Novell has gradually lost influence and struggled to evolve into the company it needed to be.