Jack Davis and George Canova founded Novell Data Systems Inc in Orem, Utah in 1980 (though possibly informally in 1979 in Provo) with $2 million (around $7.5 million in 2024) in funding from Safeguard Scientific. Crucially, Safeguard owned a controlling portion of NDSI as part of this funding deal. Canova was the the company’s first president while Davis was in charge of sales and marketing, and Warren Van Dyke Musser (Pete) of Safeguard was chairman. Their first building had previously been a t...