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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (27792)	8/19/1999 5:44:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

Novell's 3rd-Quarter Earnings Rose By A Better-Than-Expected 86% Dow Jones Online News, Thursday, August 19, 1999 at 17:20 NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Networking-software company Novell Inc., which has been trying to find new uses for its NetWare operating system amid tough competition from Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT software, late Thursday reported an 86% jump in fiscal third-quarter net income, topping analysts' expectations. Provo, Utah-based Novell (NOVL) said net income for the quarter ended July 31 came to $49.3 million, or 14 cents a share on a fully diluted basis, compared with $26.6 million, or seven cents a diluted share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue increased 20% to $326.8 million. The mean estimate of nine analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial was for net income of around 13 cents per share. The company said third-quarter revenue from directory software for server computers rose 27% to $175 million. Directory-applications revenue rose 34% to $75 million. Novell also said it will increase funding for venture capital activities by $75 million to $170 million. Novell has been moving into the hot market for single-purpose, appliance-like computers, underscoring the company's knack for finding new uses for NetWare, which was Novell's crown jewel during the 1980s and early 1990s but has since lost its luster. Novell was once one of the most influential companies in the personal-computer industry. And NetWare was the standard way that corporations would network their office PCs together. But the company ran into a double-whammy. The company embarked on a distracting and costly battle with Microsoft in PC applications programs. What's more, the company failed to build NetWare into a major platform for software developers. As a result, much of the market shifted to Windows NT. Since then, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has refocused the company, attempting to find new markets for existing Novell technologies, and to reduce the company's dependence on the original markets for NetWare, which currently accounts for a majority of revenue. The company's directory technology allows the administrators of a computer network to oversee and manage users of the system. With the ascent of the Internet, directories have emerged as an essential feature. Novell is widely regarded as having a clear lead in the field, at least until Microsoft ships a long-awaited update later this year. In its latest thrust, Novell is refashioning NetWare for the job of managing cached Web files. Copyright (c) 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.