Ad Rietveld Steps Down As Executive Vice President Of WordPerfect, The Novell Applications Group

Rietveld, a native of The Netherlands, worked in the software industry for 22 years in Europe. He was vice president of the European office for WordPerfect before he was brought to Orem, Utah to serve as WordPerfect's senior vice president of sales and marketing in 1992. He assumed the role of president and CEO of WordPerfect Corporation at the beginning of 1994, just months before Novell and WordPerfect announced their intention to merge.

"This has been a transitional year for all of us at WordPerfect and Novell," said Rietveld. "Despite the challenges of merging two large organizations, we have successfully launched state-of-the-art solutions with new versions of our major products -- NetWare 4.1, UnixWare 2.0 and PerfectOffice 3.0. I am particularly proud of the WordPerfect team that created PerfectOffice 3.0, which now sets the standard by which other suites are judged."

Rietveld's goals for 1994 were to "expand WordPerfect's Windows leadership with both general business and workgroup applications, to redefine the suite category with tightly integrated, best-of-class products, and to enter the document management and consumer product markets in a big way."

"As we close the book on last year, I feel a sense of completion," said Rietveld. "I am pleased to report that we delivered on our promises."

"Ad has done what he promised he would do and we are grateful for his contribution. He left the Applications group with strong management and excellent products and we feel confident that the group will continue in the direction that was set by Ad's leadership," said Robert J. Frankenberg.

Rietveld will continue to have a consulting relationship with Novell, specifically in the area of linguistic technologies, and will help with the transition to new leadership.