NCR Corp said Monday it will cut 1,500 jobs and take a fourth- quarter charge of $200m to $250m as part of an overall restructuring. The Dayton, Ohio-based company said the moves are part of its plan to reposition itself as a complete services provider instead of a hardware and product company. The shift will enable the company to eliminate mounting losses from commodity hardware and place more emphasis on its data warehousing business, which will become part of a three-pronged business model. The other two areas will be financial self service ( the company’s ATM business) and retail store automation.

NCR says the charge will be taken primarily to restructure the commodity hardware-based channel delivery business, and covers employee separation, facility consolidation, satisfaction of customer obligations, and write-down of goodwill and assets. The charge will likely be offset by a non-recurring tax reserve gain, the company said, and the moves are expected to result in annualized savings of about $75m, beginning in 2000.

NCR reckons that its already-improved operating income so far this year would be better by at least another $100m had it not been for the under-performance of the financial group and the aforementioned channel delivery business, where it has incurred significant losses. Last week, the company reported third-quarter net income up 112% at $53m on revenue up 1.6% at $1.53bn. Earnings per share rose to $0.53 from $0.25 a year ago and easily beat Wall Street expectations of $0.41.

The company says its goal is to be the one of the top three competitors in each of its three chosen markets going forward. It already claims the top spot in the ATM business and the number two position in retail store automation but needs to work on its data warehousing business to capitalize on what it perceives as a tremendous growth opportunity spurred on by the rise in e- business initiatives. As part of the current restructuring, all data warehousing efforts will be combined under one organization, which will be called the teradata solutions group.