For the benefit of its US shareholders, who don’t like to have to wait six months between figures, Micro Focus Plc yesterday reported that in its third to October 31, sales were $30.4m, UKP19.5m, 24.5% up. As with last year, the third quarter net profit was just above break-even, but it does not propose to give figures in detail. Revenue from direct sales which accounted for 90% of the total, was 27% greater than the third quarter of last year, and OEM revenues from sales to computer manufacturers which accounted for the remaining 10%, was 8% greater. The company says the increase in revenues resulted from sales into the client-server area and for offloading mainframe developent, with much of the increase coming from add-on products and services to the core Workbench product. We are encouraged that the consultancy initiative of earlier this year is beginning to show positive results, chairman Paul O’Grady said. Micro Focus is continuing to implement the product strategy outlined at its May user conference, addressing the need of big users to use new hardware and software without throwing away all their old Cobol programs.
