It didn’t seem likely that the possible loss warned of by 3Com Corp (CI No 1,237) was the result of any specific problem at that company, and now the point seems to be proved: another local area networking software and systems market leader, Provo, Utah-based Novell Inc has come out with a warning of its own. Novell says that while turnover for its third quarter to July 29 will be up by about 11% on the $90.4m figure for a year ago, it will be about 9% down on the figure for the company’s fiscal second quarter for February to April 1989. The company says that although shipments of software products increased modestly, the previously announced strategy of shifting out of its non strategic hardware business was the primary reason for the decrease in total revenues for the third quarter. The company also expects third quarter profits to be down a little on the $11.5m net, 35 cents a share recorded for the second quarter. No-vell puts forward a number of special factors for its slowdown, such as the acquisition of Excelan Inc, which it said led to some uncertainty among distributors, particularly during a period in which there appeared to be a general industry slowdown in demand. It says its decision to license its NE1000A and NE2000A Ethernet board business to Anthem Electronics led to an expected cut in third quarter hardware revenues. It also believes its May announcement of NetWare 386 v3.0 may have affected third quarter orders for its 80286 lines.
