Software Publishing Corp, Santa Clara, California is slashing its workforce by about 50% or 240 people as part of a drastic restructuring that will cost it about $9m, to be taken against figures for the most recent quarter, sales for which, it reckons, were about $14m. The charges include about $5.5m for the lay-offs, and about $3.5m in reserves for closing of facilities. The job cuts result from moves to centralise research and development, consolidate sales and customer support organisations and cut back marketing and administrative organisations. It looks for the cuts to save it $18m annually, and says they are necessary because price attrition and lower sales in some areas have hurt its profitability. It says that while Harvard Graphics 2.0 for Windows, launched in September, has boosted the overall number of units it has sold compared with the same stage in the life of Harvard Graphics 1.0 for Windows, growth has been more than offset by lower average selling prices and a steady decline in its MS-DOS business. The company plans to focus on its presentation software and expand its product line – it has a licensing and development deal with Visual Numerics Inc for the Stanford Graphics and Stanford Chart technical and statistical charting programs. Research and development will be centralised in its headquarters in Santa Clara, California, and work under way at its Madison, Wisconsin facility will be transferred to Santa Clara. It will also merge sales and support organisations and close several remote sales offices, and says it will sell the Madison customer support centre to distributor Softmart Inc, which is based somewhere in Pennsylvania.
