All - INTERVIEW -U.S Novell( Novell Inc )sees steady R&D costs
Tuesday October 29 11:24 AM EST
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 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 COS.TO 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 |
