The goal of BrainShare was to spread the company's message and inform its users and partners as to the capabilities and technical characteristics of its products and of networking in general.

As one publication said, "Novell holds its annual BrainShare conference to help refocus attention on the company, its goals and objectives for the upcoming year, and its networking technologies.

[2][3] One of the more memorable instances of this was the introduction of the NetWare 386 product at the 1989 event where, as Byte magazine later described it, two demonstrations of the new version's capabilities "brought the crowd to its feet cheering.

"[2] Once Novell's fortunes began a downhill slide in the mid-1990s, especially under pressure from Microsoft Windows NT, BrainShare was used to showcase new approaches that were intended to turn things around.

[7] The new few instances of the conference continued to be held over three days in Salt Lake City in February, and were used to introduce or preview new Novell technologies.

[12] Accordingly, during much of the 1990s the conference was held on the campus of the University of Utah, in the hills overlooking the rest of Salt Lake City, around the third week of March of each year, during the school's spring break.

[15] Ambitious aims would be established, such as 1996's goal of "one billion devices interconnected by NetWare by the year 2000"[4] In some cases keynotes were used to convey humorous themes, such as the propensity of some executives to dress more formally than necessary.

[14][5] As one writer for the Deseret News stated, these were "extremely technical classes and seminars on the intricacies of developing and implementing Novell networks.

"[5] Promotional merchandise was given out during the show, always an attraction to some; some items had an obvious tie-in to the conference's name, such as small foam "brains".

[14][3] People looked forward to attending BrainShare; one writer termed it his "annual pilgrimage to Salt Lake City".

[3] During BrainShare '93, for instance, companies participating in the conference include Microsoft, HP, IBM, WordPerfect, Kodak, Object Design, Lotus Software, and HyperDesk.

[4] Although Salt Lake was not as glamorous as some other convention city destinations, the Wasatch Range provided a scenic backdrop that many attendees found rewarding.

"[28] In any case, during the opening keynote Micro Focus executives spoke optimistically about the effects of the upcoming acquisition,[31][28] and there were intimations that there would be more BrainShare conferences after this one.

[31] But there have not been, and on Micro Focus forums a number of people have lamented the disappearance of a conference that they enjoyed attending or presenting at and always found worthwhile.