Inprise Corp, formerly known as Borland, said Wednesday it will restructure itself into two groups and cut 20% of its overall workforce. The Scotts Valley development tools, middleware and systems management firm will form two divisions, Inprise and borland.com. The Inprise division will continue to focus on providing integrated enterprise software packages to major corporations, while Borland.com will try to become a premier web site serving individual developers’ needs in the area of internet products and technologies, including those from third parties. Inprise says that as of the end of 1998, each division represented roughly half of the company’s revenues. The restructuring will include a streamlining of facilities, headcount and product lines and the company warns that it will result in a significant charge to be taken in the first quarter, although no specifics were disclosed. It is expected that about 190 people will receive pink slips, after the company had already cut 125 jobs in October. News of the restructuring came as Inprise reported poor fourth-quarter results, with net income of $3.5m on revenue down 3.1% year-over-year at $48.1m. The bottom line was aided significantly by one-time gains and, excluding extraordinary items, the company actually saw a pro- forma loss of $0.08 per share – for a quarter when Wall Street was expecting a profit of $0.04 per share. The company blames the weak showing on the delay of a new version of its C++Builder product and the Asian economic crisis, with revenues in that region down roughly 30% year-over-year. C++Builder 4, primarily a retail product, is now expected to be available in the first quarter. A higher level of investment in recruiting and training its US direct sales force was also cited as a reason for the quarter’s performance. For the year, net income was $8.3m, or $0.14 per share, on revenue that was essentially flat at $189.1m, compared to a net loss of $48.4m last year. รก
