Novell Inc chairman and chief executive Ray Noorda found time to have a word with the Reuters reporter at the NetWorld show in Dallas, and said he expected the company’s 1994 performance to match 1993, but declined to quantify it. We consider next year’s opportunity to be as good as it was this past year, Noorda said. Our revenues will continue to grow, he said, without specifying if revenue growth would keep pace with that of the past few years. Novell’s share price has been under pressure of late after poorer-than-expected sales in Europe, which is a major market for Novell. Noorda said Europe’s economic outlook remains a little uncertain, (he can say that again) but in the US, he expects continuing growth. Asked about recent downgrades by Wall Street analysts, Noorda alluded to the European slowdown, saying unforeseen events happened throughout the world. We don’t have a totally clear picture of next year, but he said he has a very optimistic view of the medium term. Asked about Novell’s NetWare 4.0 sales, which have been less than sparkling since the major new release was introduced, executive vice-president of the NetWare systems group Richard King said we’re actually starting to see some positive movement there. We’re getting very positive review there. King added that he was seeing more applications using features of 4.0, which was introduced in April: 1993 has been an investment year in which Novell made several acquisitions. In response to a question about Novell’s competitive battle with Microsoft Corp, Noorda said we’re not taking any overt action: we think there’s good cause for ongoing review of the situation.
