Novell Inc. reported late Thursday a jump in revenues for its fiscal second quarter ended April 30, compared to the same period a year ago, but also saw losses rise, bogged down by pre-tax charges.
The Provo, Utah, companys revenues checked in at $273.9 million compared to $240.8 million in the same period last year. But Novells losses also mounted, with a net loss of $173.5 million, up from $151.3 million in the same period a year ago. That included $190 million in pre-tax charges, mostly from the write down of goodwill, impaired investments and restructuring, company officials said.
Much of that write-off was $144 million of goodwill associated with Novells acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners IT services business last July.
The company reported $197.1 million in sales from software products and $75.3 million from consulting in the quarter. Net Management Services was the leading revenue generator with $152 million.
“We slowed the sharp quarterly decline in consulting revenue that Novell has seen for the last three quarters,” said Novell chairman and CEO Jack Messman, in a statement. Messman said revenue was flat in both software and consulting quarter-to-quarter, but that the company expects that trend to improve in the second half of the fiscal year.
“Were making solid progress in improving Novell to fully capture the significant market opportunity of Internet business solutions,” he said.
The company issued guidance that revenue would likely remain flat in the third quarter, which would allow it to turn a slight profit. Novell needs its new solutions-selling effort to be successful and continued improvement from its IT services business to see improvements in its revenue, according to a statement issued by the company late Thursday.´