Micro Focus Plc appears to be leading a charmed life at present: it kicked off its end of year results meeting by announcing that it is to become an AD/Cycle Business Partner, going on to reveal pre-tax profits up 65% to UKP13.5m on turnover up 30% to UKP46.4m. This growth was sustained by direct sales from the Packaged Product Division, which accounted for 71% of revenue and grew by 69% over the year, driven mainly by sales of the Cobol/2 Workbench. On the other hand, OEM business – handled by the Computer Industry Division – was stagnant and newly contracted business in this area declined. These two divisions represent IBM world busi ness and the open systems world. In future Micro Fo cus will be doing more direct distribution with Unix products, relying less on OEM contracts as the direct distribution approach has kept revenues buoyant in the IBM world. The company stressed that the Packag ed Product Division was not locked into AD/Cycle and that as part of the marketing agreement between the two companies IBM can market products outside of the AD/Cycle strategy. For example, a Cobol/2 compiler offering support for Windows is now shipping, and IBM may choose to market that. The company intends to grow steadily, it will not be making acquisitions and nor will it be terribly aggressive in the market. Chairman Paul O’Grady was reluctant to promise the spectacular level of growth for the current financial year that Micro Focus managed in 1991. He said that direct sales remained strong, but added that the bus iness plan for the Computer Industry Division was on ly expecting slight growth. Micro Focus also announ ced that it would dispose of its 54% holding in Soft wright Systems Ltd to a management buyout funded by venture capital. This division had not contributed to profits and was felt to be peripheral to the core business. The UKP750,000 or so proceeds from the dis posal will be added to the company’s UKP20m cash pile.
