Novell blames Europe for disappointing quarter

The networking software giant made a $51 million profit on $375 million in revenues compared to a $64 million profit on $438 million in revenues for the year ago quarter. The numbers were slightly below analysts' expectations. Sales of IntranetWare (formerly NetWare) were up ten percent to $251 million on the equivalent quarter in 1996.

"Despite market weakness in Europe and Japan that resulted in a slight sequential decline in revenue, we shipped more than 250,000 network server operating systems in the first quarter," said. Novell president and COO Joe Marengi.

"We expect the current base of more than 20 million NDS users to grow substantially in 1997. Also contributing by the end of the year will be an expanding number of Unix and Microsoft NT servers that take advantage of Novell network directory services. The adoption of NDS by server manufacturers, independent software vendors and leading telecommunications providers worldwide will continue to drive NDS as the de facto market standard for network directory services."