Software Product Corner: Mixed Bag

Novell: Still Struggling

Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts Novell provides data center,
workgroup, and desktop solutions. It offers identity management and Web services
solutions, and cross-platform solutions on operating systems, such as Linux,
NetWare, Windows, and Unix. Novell has strategic alliance with IBM, HP, Dell,
Intel, Oracle, SAP, AMD, Veritas, Computer Associates International, EMC, and
Adobe Systems. It declared its financial results for its first quarter ended
January 31, 2007. Its net revenue stood at $230 mn, a decline of five percent as
compared to $242 mn in the same period last year.

During the period, Linux platform products generated $15 mn
revenue, an increase of 46% as compared to $10 mn in the same period last year.
Revenue from identity and access management was $24 mn, down 7% y-o-y basis.
Combined revenue from Open Enterprise Server and products related to NetWare
declined 18% y-o-y basis. During the period, Novell recorded a net loss of $19
mn as compared to a net profit of $1.86 mn in the same period last year. For the
fiscal year 2007, net revenue is expected to be between $945 mn and $975 mn.

During the quarter, Novell appointed Troy Richardson as the
president of Novell Americas. He will be responsible for the full range of
Novell's sales and consulting business across the US, Latin America, and
Canada, and Volker Smid was appointed as the president of Novell EMEA. Smid will
oversee the full range of Novell's sales and consulting business across
Europe, the Middle East and Africa, an important region for Novell. Microsoft
and Novell entered into business and Technical collaboration agreement to build
a series of new solutions on interoperability between Microsoft Windows and
Linux. Novell shares are currently traded at $7.33.

Cognos: Profits Grow Ahead of Sales

Cognos provides business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management
(CPM) software solutions. It declared its financial results for its fourth
quarter ended February 28, 2007. Revenues for the fourth quarter stood at $284.5
mn, compared to $253.1 mn for the same period last fiscal year, an increase of
12%. License revenue was $130.5 mn, compared with $117.9 mn a year ago, an
increase of 11%. Net profit touched at $60.9 mn, compared to $39.3 mn for the
same period last fiscal year, an increase of 55%. For the first quarter of
fiscal year 2008 ending May 31, 2007, the revenue is expected to be between $230
mn and $240 mn.

During
the quarter Cognos acquired privately held Celequest, a provider of operational
business intelligence solutions based in Redwood City, California. It also
entered into a strategic OEM agreement with Epsilon, provider of multi-channel,
data-driven marketing technologies and services. Epsilon will offer to embed
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence's (BI) reporting and analysis capabilities into
its marketing technology solutions.

Cognos and IBM announced the extension of their strategic
alliance to deliver a workforce performance management solution through IBM's
Human Resources Business Transformation Outsourcing (BTO) service. Currently,
the shares are traded at $41.68.

Autodesk: Revenues up 18%

Autodesk is a design software and services company, which offers solutions
to customers in building, manufacturing, infrastructure and digital media
markets that enables to create, manage and share their data and designs
digitally. Autodesk declared its financial results for the fourth quarter ended
January 2007. Its revenues stood at $497 mn, an increase of 19% as compared to
$417 mn in the same period last year. Revenue from Maintenance contributed to
25% that is $123 mn of the total revenue, whereas License contributed 75% that
is $375 mn of the total revenue. Revenues in America increased 15% over the
fourth quarter to $203 mn. Revenues in EMEA increased 26% to $189 mn, while
those from Asia Pacific increased 18% to $105 mn. Net revenues for the first
quarter of fiscal 2008 are expected to be in the range of $490 mn to $500 mn,
and long-term revenue CAGR of 15%.

During the quarter, Autodesk and PTC announced a technology
exchange agreement to expand interoperability options for their customers and
the manufacturing industry facilitating software interoperability for
organizations with multi-CAD environments. Autodesk along with ThomasNet entered
into a strategic partnership to extend its Autodesk Design Review software to
include on-demand access to ThomasNet's product and service information.
Autodesk along with Phoenix Gold a designer and manufacturer of audio
components, is implementing Autodesk Inventor software to streamline its design
processes. It is also partnering with Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES)
to enhance the Revit software platform for building information modeling (BIM)
to support sustainable design. Autodesk shares are traded at $39.65.

Compuware: Slow Growth, Profits
Decline

Compuware provides professional services, business systems analysis, design,
communication, programming and implementation, as well as software conversion
and systems planning and consulting. It declared its results for the third
quarter ended December 31, 2006. Its revenues stood at $315 mn, an increase of
four percent from $306 mn in the same period last year. Net profits stood at $36
mn, a decline of three percent from $38 mn in the same period last year. During
the quarter, Compuware announced the availability of OptimalJ version 4.2. It
entered into a strategic partnership between Compuware Covisint and Initiate
Systems, developers of the healthcare-industry standard for enterprise master
patient index.

Compuware also acquired privately held Proxima Technology for
approximately $31 mn, net of cash. Headquartered in Denver, and with key offices
in Australia and the UK, Proxima has approximately seventy employees. Currently
its shares change hands at $10.

Red Hat: Improved Performance

Founded in 1993 Red Hat provides open source software solutions to the
enterprise, including its core enterprise operating system platform, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux (Enterprise Linux), as well as other Red Hat enterprise
technologies. It announced its financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter
ended February 28, 2007. Its revenue for the quarter stood at $111.1 mn, an
increase of 41% from the year ago quarter and 5% from the prior quarter.
Subscription revenue was $95.9 mn, up 44% y-o-y and 8% sequentially. Net profit
for the quarter was $20.5 mn compared to $14.6 mn for the prior quarter. During
the quarter, Red Hat joined Interop Vendor Alliance, an industry-wide
organization working to connect people, data and diverse systems through better
interoperability. Currently, Red Hat shares are traded at $22.17.