Pick-under-Unix pioneer Vmark Software Inc of Westborough, Massachusetts is firing 16% of its workforce as part of a major restructuring that will also see it selling its third party Novell Inc NetWare education businesses, and transferring a majority of its German subsidiary to Cincom Systems Inc. The shake-up is occasioned by an unexpectedly poor fourth quarter performance which will see revenues only flat with the previous quarter, putting it about 4% shy of analysts’ expectations, and resulting in an operating loss of $0.01 to $0.04 per share for the quarter, exacerbated by the fact that the company will also take an $8m pre-tax charge to cover the cost of the lay-offs and disposal of non-strategic businesses. The company is blaming increased sales and marketing expenses associated with the launch of its new DataStage data warehouse product for the shortfall in revenues. VMark Software is now expecting fourth quarter sales of about $16.7m, flat with the third quarter but down from the year- ago fourth quarter sales of $17.2m.
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