Linux has saved the day again, this time for Novell.The company’s focus on Linux paid off this week in a big way, as the company posted a profit in its fourth quarter and for the year. While Novell’s old-line NetWare business declined, business for its Linux server software grew. The company earned $13 million on revenue of $301 million for the fiscal fourth quarter, ending Oct. 31. During the same period last year, Novell lost of $109 million. For the full fiscal year, Novell showed revenue of $1.2 billion and earnings of $31 million. Revenue for the full year fiscal 2003 was $1.1 billion with a $162 million loss. Jack Messman, Chairman and CEO of Novell, pointed to the power of Linux in announcing the company’s financial report Thursday. “Our key growth initiatives of Linux and Identity Management continued their strong performance. In particular, our Linux solutions are allowing us to reach more and more new customers at a pace not seen at Novell for many years. We see no slowdown to the tremendous progress made by Linux technology to date,” Messman said. “However, we still have challenges ahead. While we had a strong finish in closing fiscal year 2004, fiscal year 2005 will be another rebuilding year for Novell as we make significant investments in our solutions, systems and peo-ple to try to grow our newer businesses in order to counterbalance the continued decline in our NetWare business.” Novell actually made its move to Linux in November, 2003, buying Suse Linux for $210 million. The company quickly signed partnerships with the likes of IBM and Hewlett-Packard to sell the server software. And earlier this month, Novell announced a desktop Linux operating system for enterprise use. Technology Industry