SV News Service
Provo, Sep 9
Novell is expected to announce a lay-off that could affect up
1400 people, a quarter of the company's 5,500-person workforce. A company
spokesman would only confirm that the company is working to take steps to reduce
operating expenses.
Novell is suffering from lackluster sales of its boxed software
products and a continued decline of the company's position in the market for
networking operating software. Novell's third-quarter profits were down 83
percent from the year-ago period to $ 8.6 million on revenue of $ 270 million.
Already Novell has begun to de-emphasize NetWare, which is competing with
Windows NT, Sun Solaris and the Linux operating system in the network operating
systems market.
Analysts said Novell's problems make the company ripe for a
take-over
by a larger conglomerate. Some have suggested IBM may be interested in acquiring
Novell's business. Some have the opinion that if IBM is interested, it is
primarily for Novel's customer base.