PROVO — Novell Inc., with 2,000 Utah workers among 6,500 employees worldwide, is considering moving its headquarters from Utah.
"We're in the process of evaluating whether to move the headquarters to Boston," Jack L. Messman, Novell president and chief executive officer, told The Boston Globe after the Provo-based technology company announced Monday it was acquiring SilverStream Software Inc., based in Billerica, Mass.
The Globe noted that Novell last year acquired Cambridge Technology Partners and that several executives, including Messman, who had been president and chief executive of Cambridge, are based in the Boston area.
Messman was unavailable for comment Tuesday morning, but Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry said Novell remains committed to Utah.
"Our headquarters remain here in Utah, although we have executives here and executives there (Massachusetts) and executives in San Jose," Lowry said. "What we have said, and what Jack has repeated, is our official position that the headquarters are in Utah, with executive offices in Boston, and we have not indicated that will change."
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Novell has about 350 people working in Massachusetts, he said.
"The bottom line is that this (Utah operation) is the largest, by far, contingent of employees for the company," Lowry said. "It includes all the core corporate functions: marketing, human resources, legal and most importantly development. The core of any technology company is what it can build, and most of the developers are here.
"Novell is not going to disappear regardless of what we decide to call the headquarters of the company. The meat of the firm is here in Utah."
Lowry said it is difficult to determine how many Utah employees are involved in headquarters operations.
The move of Iomega Corp.'s headquarters from Roy to San Diego last fall involved only about 100 people but was deemed a major blow to the psyche of the state's high-tech sector. Iomega at the time still had more than 650 workers in Utah despite the headquarters move.
"Novell is a very distributed company," Lowry said. "We've got a lot of consultants, and they, by nature, are out in the field. We're spread out over the U.S. and the world, and our executives are spread across the U.S. and the world. I don't think we're atypical there. A lot of tech companies are very much distributed in terms of management and personnel."
Gov. Mike Leavitt on Tuesday morning declined to comment on the matter until he speaks with Messman.
Provo city officials said they had not spoken to Novell about a possible headquarters move.
Richard Nelson, president and chief executive officer of the Utah Information Technology Association, noted that Novell has been an important part of the state's high-tech economy for many years. "We would hope they continue to keep a large majority of their high-paying jobs here in Utah," he said.
Novell on Monday said it would acquire SilverStream, involved in Internet services-oriented application development, in a $212 million deal. Novell will acquire all SilverStream outstanding shares at $9 per share. Novell expects SilverStream's balance sheet to have about $100 million in cash, yielding a net cash outlay by Novell of about $112 million.
The boards of directors of both companies have approved the deal, which likely will close in July with an acceptance of the tender offer by shareholders representing 90 percent of SilverStream shares. If less than 90 percent are tendered, a formal meeting of SilverStream stockholders would be called to approve the transaction, and the acquisition likely would close during Novell's fourth quarter.
SilverStream will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Novell.
In making the announcement Monday, Novell said David Litwack, president and chief executive officer of SilverStream, would become a senior vice president of Novell and join Novell's Worldwide Management Committee. It also said SilverStream's offices would remain in Billerica.
The Boston Globe description of the situation was that "Novell may also have moved closer to abandoning its Utah headquarters and setting up shop in the Bay State."
The newspaper said it was unclear how many Novell employees would move in a headquarters shift. "But the decision to pay $9 a share in cash for SilverStream would seem to give Novell one more reason to make Massachusetts its home," the Globe said.
Contributing: Jesse Hyde
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com