The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Novell pulls in Q2 profit on lower costs

Healthy pink penguins

Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery

Novell Inc swung to a profit on lower expenses and revenue that rose a slender $4m in its fiscal second quarter.

It reeled in $236m from sales in the Q2 period ended 31 April 2008, compared to $232m for the same quarter a year ago.

Novell said the jump in sales of its Linux business software helped offset a drop in sales at its workgroup networking software division.

Linux and other open platform products drove like-for-like sales up 31 per cent to $30m, while the firm’s workgroup revenue fell one percent to $92m for the quarter. The rest of its revenues comes from services.

Novell brought in net income from continuing operations of $5.9m, or two cents a share, compared with a year earlier loss of $2.9m, or one cent a share.

Operating expenses fell to $173m from $180m while profit from continuing operations, excluding items, was six cents a share, beating Wall Street’s Q2 forecast of five cents.

Novell, which is the world’s second biggest Linux software vendor behind rival Red Hat, reiterated its 2008 net revenue outlook of $940m to $970m.

It added that it still expects non-GAAP operating margin between seven per cent and nine per cent, excluding acquisition-related items.

Shares of Novell rose 14 cents, or 2.1 per cent, to close at $6.71 on Nasdaq. ®

Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider

More from The Register

Thanks, NSA: Amazon sales of Orwell's 1984 rise 9,500%
Citizens of Oceania bone up on the new reality
Microsoft to open Windows Stores inside 600 Best Buy locations
Product showcases 'must be seen to be believed'
 breaking news
Author Iain (M) Banks falls to cancer at 59
Misses the release of his final work
 breaking news
What did the Lehman Brothers implosion look like to a techie?
Insider tells all about the Gnab Gib at Lehmans
It's official: 'tweet' an English word – not just in the avian sense
If the Oxford English Dictionary says it is so, then it is so
 breaking news
The only Waze is Google: Ad giant tipped to gobble map app 'for $1.3bn'
Pac-Man-satnav-ish upstart in bidding war with Apple, Facebook
 breaking news
1-in-10 e-tomes 'are self-published'... most are 'rubbish' says book ed
Publishing man scoffs at go-it-alone writers, ursines still fouling in forests
 breaking news
Facebook RSS reader said to uncloak June 20
Secret event scooped by Scottish developer?