Plaskett will continue to serve on the board of directors, the Waltham, Mass.-based company said Thursday in a statement. Novell was founded in Utah and continues to have its largest office in Provo.

Crandall is a founding managing director of technology venture capital firm Arbor Partners LLC and chairman of Pelstar LLC, a maker of medical measuring devices. He's also managing partner of real-estate development firm Alpine Capital Partners LLC.

Novell teamed up with Microsoft Corp. last month to sell more premium business software to Chinese companies. The Linux operating system is open-source, meaning its underlying code is shared freely online. Novell makes money by offering premium versions of the software, along with related services.