Heavy spending on its NUMA-Q systems technology and deferred customers orders left Sequent Computer Systems Inc to eke out fourth quarter and full-year profits than greatly reduced from last year, although revenue was still ahead. Sequent reported fourth quarter net income of $2.5m, or seven cents a share, down 76% on the $10.6m it did last time. Revenue was up 20% at $183.2m over $151.8m in the same period a year ago. For the year profit was down 77% at $7.7m over $35m on revenue up 10% at $595.3m over $540.3m in 1995. Sequent says NUMA-Q orders accounted for nearly 25% of fourth quarter product revenue. It finished with 28 new accounts of $1m or greater in the quarter and four over $5m. Large OLTP and data warehousing orders accounted for 75% of sales – one NUMA-Q account was worth $8.3m. Sequent shares were down $1.00 on the day at $18.00.
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