Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 31, 1995 TAG: 9510310089
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bloomberg Business News
DATELINE: PROVO, UTAH LENGTH: Medium
WordPerfect ``could go for as low as $400 million to $500 million,'' because its market share has plunged, said Karl Wong, analyst at market researcher Dataquest Inc. ``Novell wants to get rid of this badly, and the buyer would be in the driver's seat.''
Novell Chairman Bob Frankenberg said the Provo, Utah-based company, which will focus on computer network software, is in talks to sell WordPerfect and the Quattro Pro spreadsheet program to a U.S. company he declined to name. The sale will be to an ``industry partner,'' the company said in a statement.
WordPerfect is one of several pioneer software companies, including Lotus Development Corp. and Borland International Inc., that lost market share to Microsoft Corp., the world's largest personal computer software maker.
Microsoft's Word program last year surpassed WordPerfect as the best-selling word processing software. Microsoft's Windows operating systems control 76 percent of the world's personal computers.
Novell also said it plans to buy back up to 10 percent of its stock, or about 37 million shares. Novell shares were up 13/8, or 9 percent, at 161/4 in Nasdaq trading of 12.76 million shares.
The WordPerfect sale is part of Frankenberg's strategy to shed or discontinue products and businesses that aren't directly linked with network software, analysts said. Novell last month gave control of its Unix network operating system to Santa Cruz Operations Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. for $72 million.
The Novell chairman is trying to dump a hodgepodge of companies acquired by his predecessor, Raymond Noorda, in a failed strategy to compete with Microsoft, analysts said. The sale will result in Novell dropping 1,500 to 1,800 employees, reducing its payroll to 7,600, Frankenberg said.
by CNB