Borland is back in the black

BORLAND International, the Californian software group, has turned round a pre-tax loss of dollars 98m ( pounds 57.3m) to a dollars 9.4m profit for the half-year to 30 September, on sales down from dollars 251m to dollars 243m, writes Neil Thapar.

The improvement reflects the absence of restructuring costs, compared with a dollars 110m charge incurred after Borland acquired Ashton-Tate, a struggling rival, for dollars 439m last year.

Earnings per share amounted to 0.26 cents against a 3.79p loss.

Borland said Quattro Pro, an enhanced spreadsheet package for use with the Windows program, had been in strong demand since its launch last month.

But fears of a delay in shipping Paradox, a new database package, led to a profits downgrading by US analysts. Alex Brown has trimmed its full-year earnings forecast from dollars 1.45 to dollars 1.30.