President of Novell Steps Down

Novell Inc. said its president and chief operating officer, Joseph Marengi, resigned, in a widely anticipated move. His departure at the end of the month follows Eric Schmidt’s appointment in March as chairman and chief executive of the lagging networking software company. Marengi was promoted to president last August, while the Orem, Utah-based company looked for a new chairman and chief executive, after the resignation of Robert Frankenberg. The company ended up passing over Marengi for Schmidt, who was the chief technology officer of Mountain View, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems Inc. Novell shares gained 3.125 cents to close at $7.687 on Nasdaq.