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

To: Raven McCloud who wrote (18713)	11/25/1997 11:08:00 PM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 42771

The company is "breathing a sigh of relief," said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. Without the bloated inventories and an end-of-quarter push of products to distributors, this is "real revenue," Schmidt told Dow Jones. NOVELL SEES 4Q REVENUE REBOUND FROM 3Q, INVENTORIES DROP ÿ By Mark Boslet PALO ALTO, Calif. (Dow Jones)--Novell Inc. (NOVL) returned to profitability in its fiscal fourth quarter and saw its revenue rebound from its third quarter. The Provo, Utah, maker of networking software also said inventories at distributors declined from the third quarter, when the company took a dose of bitter medicine to reduce them. Novell had reined in bloated inventories by essentially halting third-quarter shipments of new products. While this effort cut inventory levels to five to six weeks of sales - from levels three to four times as great - revenue also suffered, falling to $90 million from $365 million a year earlier. The fourth quarter, which ended Oct. 31, saw a return to a revenue level near the second quarter's $273.1 million. Fourth-quarter sales came to $269.3 million, and the company posted a profit of 2 cents a share. That compares with sales of $383.7 million a year earlier, when Novell earned 17 cents a share. For this year's fourth quarter, analysts had predicted earnings of 1 cent a share. The company is "breathing a sigh of relief," said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. Without the bloated inventories and an end-of-quarter push of products to distributors, this is "real revenue," Schmidt told Dow Jones. For the first time in many quarters, sales out of the distribution channel to customers were greater than sales to distributors, he said. Schmidt said quarterly sales were driven by Novell's NetWare network operating system, which accounted for more than 50% of revenue. Also important, software products licensed to operators of large networks generated 37% of revenue. Despite the progress, the company still has to find a source of new growth. Schmidt points to new products such as Moah, a new version of NetWare designed for use with networks using the Internet protocol, TCPIP. There are a lot of reasons to think Novell will find new product strength especially since its NetWare is faster and more scalable than Windows NT, Schmidt claimed. November 25, 1997 6:16 PM DOW JONES NEWS SERVICE -Mark Boslet; 415-496-1366

To: Raven McCloud who wrote (18713)	11/25/1997 11:21:00 PM
From: Lonnie Yearwood	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

O.K., I'm a long and have a standing GTC order to sell 200 shares at $10. I realize that 200 shares (.00006% of the company) isn't much, but, hey, they let me vote and all that. Besides, I can use a tax loss. Any thoughts as to whether I should (1) cancel the order and watch the opening price, (2) raise the $10 limit to ???, or (3) leave the order as is. I welcome all comments and will not hold anyone responsible for bad advice or judgement. How could things possibly get worse anyway? Regardless of what else Novell has and hasn't done, it's doing a nice little thing on C\|Net (news.com) that permits you to e-mail a news story to whomever you want. Look for the box in the upper right-hand area of the screen.

To: Raven McCloud who wrote (18713)	11/26/1997 1:00:00 AM
From: john sieck	Respond to of 42771

I sold my 1,500 shares on friday @ 9 1/16 after attending a Windows NT Server class. The NetWare classes were sparsley populated while the NT classes were overflowing. I have worked with NetWare for over six years now and have recently upgraded my servers to 4.11. However, even though it was clearly obvious to me that NT is slow and bloated, the seductive nature of the familiar Windows interface overcomes a lot. Even more of a concern going forward that I havn't seen any discussion on is the Military IT-21 initiative. This is an initiative to standardise NOS's, Desktop software and all hardware. The last word out is to standardise on NT for the NOS, Office 97, and Exchange. Where does that leave NOVL when the the military is going through a massive IT upgrade cycle in preparations for DMS. Good Luck To All. Better Technology vs Better Marketing john

To: Raven McCloud who wrote (18713)	11/26/1997 9:18:00 AM
From: BP Ritchie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Thanks for the insight, Michael! I did notice a fair amount of what looked like short sales yesterday as well! The 'bottom line' numbers do look a bit better than I expected, and from the comments on this thread ... probably better than reality too. But, ... I don't think they really started to work on generating revenue until the last few weeks. They are starting from a very low 'benchmark' and have plenty of pent up demand to fill now ... I think that 1998 will produce some significant real gains in revenue ... or set the scene for a buy-out that they will agree to this time. It will probably be difficult for a short to avoid being nailed without a lot of attention to the daily & minute by minute news about the company. I guess the 'interesting times' aren't over yet. I bet there will be a lot more attention to Novell now, if they use it right it could help them ... but, then again we've seen what they did with other opportunities (ignored them) ... it's finally time to see if the management changes had a positive effect, I think we'll know pretty soon now.