With IBM Corp sold out of mainframes for most of the year, Sunnyvale, California-based Amdahl Corp had to see something of a comeback year in 1994, and indeed it did, turning in a $74.8m profit where in 1993 it lost $580m – after $393m in restructuring charges. The company however remains shrunken – a one-time $2,000m-a-year company, it saw sales slip even on 1993, down 2.5% at $1,639m, although growth resumed in the fourth quarter, with sales up 12.6% at $498.7m, on which it made a profit of $40.9m, about matching the loss of a year earlier.The company says cutbacks in manufacturing capacity have helped to stabilise prices and enabled Amdahl to work off excess inventory – it was $283m at year-end against $816m a year earlier – and restore its balance sheet to financial health. Gross margins jumped to 36% in 1994 from 27% a year earlier.It now looks to its new Unix businesses for growth.
