Novell NZ shrugs off big layoffs worldwide

By ADAM GIFFORD

Novell New Zealand country manager Peter Revell says the laying-off of 16 per cent of the international workforce will not affect the company here.

"We're taking on more staff. We have a consultant starting this week and we're looking for someone else who can do high-level consulting on system architecture.

"What's happening is the move to the net services strategy has taken longer than Novell expected, and so [chief executive] Eric Schmidt is taking steps to align costs to revenues.

"There's no hint of any lack of confidence in our strategy and direction, and our customers don't see this as the end of the world."

Mr Revell said Novell sales here had grown 15 per cent this year, but it could be several months before the rest of the company caught up.

With market share dropping for its traditional Netware product, which is used as an operating system for computers in large companies, Novell is refocusing on the net services market.

This means a change in products and staff skills.

The redundancies will leave Novell with 4600 staff worldwide, and with other changes should reduce operating costs by about $25 million a quarter.

The Utah-based company is also writing off other assets, and expects to take a pretax restructuring charge of $US40 million to $US50 million in its fourth quarter.