INTERVIEW -U.S Novellsees steady R&D costs
LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuter) - U.S. networking products group
Novell Inc plans to maintain its research and development
spending at about 17 percent of revenues as it focuses
aggressively on its Internet and intranets businesses, a top
official said here on Tuesday.
"The important thing is that during the past year, that
percentage of revenues also got spent on things like
WordPerfect," said Vic Langford, senior vice president of
Novell's Internet and Intranet services unit, referring to the
disposal of that company early this year.
"What we now have is the same percentage totally focused on
the Internet and intranets," he said in an interview.
Langford, based in San Jose, California, was in London for a
technology conference where Novell was set to unveil NetWare for
SAA with International Business Machines Corp .
The product enables customers to connect servers to IBM
mainframes, he said.
Langford said analysts expect the U.S. company to report
revenues of $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion this year, although he
would not comment on the company's own forecasts.
He reiterated Novell's plans to use aggressive marketing for
its NetWare and IntraNetware software to counter competition
from Microsoft Corp's rival product, Windows NT.
The group expected to maintain its 63 percent share of the
global network operating system market, despite Microsoft's
competition, he said.
"We're putting more dollars into marketing and getting our
message out than ever before," he said, noting that Novell
currently spends over $20 million on advertising and promotion
expenses per quarter.
He also said Novell planned to concentrate on its existing
businesses and did not expect further disposals.
Novell sold WordPerfect earlier this year to Corel Corp
for stock worth about $130 million after buying the
company in 1994 for $1.4 billion of stock.
When asked about acquisitions, he said, "There might be
some, but certainly not of the order of the WordPerfect
acquisition or anything like that."
However, the company did plan to use some of its $1.0
billion in cash to strengthen its partnerships, he said.
The company also expected to announce this week a pact under
which Microsoft will license some of Novell's linguistic
technology for integration in their desktop applications.
-- Jeff Daeschner, London Newsroom +44 171 542 7717 |
