Novell Inc is expected to unveil plans to reorganise itself in the light of its WordPerfect Corp acquisition and could lay off as many as 1,000 employees, according to US reports. If they are accurate, staff cuts are likely to come in two waves – one in each of the July and October quarters. Chief executive Robert Frankenberg denied that certain executives, such as chief technologist Kanwal Rekhi and executive vice-president Mary Burnside, will leave. He also refuted talk that executive vice-president of the AppWare Systems Group, John Edwards, is either about to leave or to become president. Sources confirmed he is spending less time on AppWare and more on the transition team dealing with the reorganisation. They also added that vice-president Bob Young is to run the workgroup division of WordPerfect and that other WordPerfect management posts are likely to be filled by Novell staff. Other changes being considered are said to include a more clearly defined role for executive vice-president Richard King, who currently looks after NetWare and related technologies. King’s empire could be split up to enable him to spend more time on NetWare-specific projects. Novell is also thought likely to restructure the greatly enlarged company along product-related lines with units for applications, tools, networking products and operating systems.
