Norsk Data, headquartered in Oslo, Norway has seen its fortunes continue to decline over the past six months, with a pre-tax loss of over $27m up from a figure around $17m last time. Furthermore, turnover has fallen 27% to a little under $155m. At the moment Norsk Data employs 3,333 people but this will be reduced to 2,700 by the end of 1989, with 600 redundancies coming into effect on October 1. Half of these job losses will be made in Norway with the rest coming from outside Norway – but Geoff Webster, managing director of Norsk Data UK said that while further rationalisation will go ahead here, there will be no more redundancies in the UK. The redundancies will do nothing to spice up the figures for the next half which are expected to be equally awful. Terje Mikalsen, chairman of Norsk Data’s Board, blamed the company’s short-term misfortunes on its change of operating system from proprietary to standard architecture which has led to a decline in sales. This decline was further compounded by the company being forced to pre-announce its new computers before they had been developed. The group is, however, restructuring into discrete business units with each geographical subsidiary responsible for its own finances and business alliances. These units will focus on vertical market sectors such as central government, local government, and the private sector, and will be serviced by Norsk Data’s trading, customer service, and system consultants divisions. For example, in the UK the core business growth will come from local authorities, with the financial and manufacturing sectors taking a back seat. In West Germany the mechanical engineering industry will remain the focus of attention, as will defence in the US. It is no secret that Norsk Data is desperately seeking business partnerships and to this end it has signed a 50/50 joint venture with Kommunedata A/S in Norway. Norsk Data’s subsidiary Dolphin Server Technology A/S is currently developing Unix computers which are reported to be on target, but no partnerships have been announced in this area. Technovision, the CAD/CAM subsidiary and Comdec, the graphics unit are looking to be pan-European operations which are planned to grow by partnerships and associations. Again, the company had no progress to report yesterday in these areas.
