Micro Focus Group Plc, the London, UK and Mountain View, California-based Cobol software tools company, wants to change its name to Merant Plc to reflect a change of focus for the struggling company. It claimed that its merger with Intersolv Inc in 1988 (CI No 3,434) was the first step in a strategic plan to build a new company from the existing base. The plan calls for repositioning the company well beyond its current identification with Cobol development environments to true enterprise application development leadership in the distributed computing environments of the future, according to a company statement. The decision to reposition the company comes only a month after it suffered a sharp decline in its core software revenues, plunged into the red and chief executive Martin Walters resigned (CI No 3,549). Micro Focus shares, which hit a peak of $60.625 last year, reacted to news of the name change by easing back a further 1.2% to $10.31.
