Novell continues to show signs of recovery

Novell has continued to show evidence that it is turning its fortunes around with a bounce back into the black on operations income and a slight increase on revenue in its third quarter.

A debt-write off caused by an impairment charge of $15m related to auction-rate securities forced the company to report a loss for the quarter but it announced expectations of a strong end to its financial year/

In a recent interview with MicroScope, the UK and Ireland managing director Jacqueline de Rojas said that the company had managed to improve its position a lot on the last year and had worked hard to develop its channel partners.

“The technology areas we are in are not in declining markets. Security has massive potential. In the Linux area everyone wants to cut costs and get an alternative to Microsoft on the desktop,” she says, mentioning Novell’s alternative to Office, GroupWise.

Echoing that message the president and CEO of Novell Ron Hovsepian said that it was aiming to continue improvements to its position: “Our transformation of the company positions us well to focus on sustained growth in 2009.”

For its quarter ended 31 July Novell reported net revenue of $245m, which is slightly up on the $237m for the same period last year. But there was an improvement in the income from operations numbers producing a $1m figure from a position of a loss of $10m in the same period in 2007.

The vendor’s Linux and security products reported growth by its Workgroup product revenue dipped by 1% compared to last year.

One of the other points in the figures to point out is the mixed results currency exchange rates had for the vendor, producing $7m in revenue but hitting operating expenses for the same figure.