DATA GENERAL <DGN> SEES LITTLE SALES UPTURN
Data General Corp said sales continue to
remain flat and it sees little evidence that demand will pick
up in the near future.
    The company had not "really seen any major change" in
demand, vice president of group marketing, J. David Lyons, told
Reuters in an interview. "Our sales have been moderate to flat,
but certainly not down," Lyons said.
    Data General president Edson de Castro declined to comment
on his outlook for the computer industry or on the company's
performance.
   
    Wall Street analysts said they were not surprised by the
less than confident message from Data General which earlier
today announced computer networking products to link personal
computers with networks of its minicomputers and computers from
other vendors.
    "They've tried a number of different things that haven't
seemed to work," said Paine Webber analyst Stephen Smith. "Data
General is finding that aggressive pricing alone isn't enough"
to win sales," Smith said.
    In the second quarter ended March 31, Data General posted
an operating loss of 24.4 mln dlrs, or 91 cts a share, compared
to earnings of 2.0 mln dlrs, or eight cts a share, a year
earlier. Sales for the quarter fell to 315.2 mln dlrs from
318.8 mln dlrs.
    Despite reports of an upturn in sales at rivals Digital
Equipment Corp <DEC> and International Business Machines Corp
<IBM>, Data General said it was not convinced that the
minicomputer market had emerged from a two-year slump.
    "We would rather wait until we see a sustained improvement
in orders," Lyons said.
   
    Lyons said new hardware and software introduced by the
company are a response to customers who want to tie together
their growing number of PCs and to connect them with larger
mini and mainframe computers.
    He said the products are part of a new strategy of
providing industry-standard systems that allow computers from
different vendors to share and exchange information.
   
    Analysts noted that Data General is one of many companies
promoting the integration of PCs with other office computers.
    "PC integration is a tough strategy," said Smith.
    "A lot of people are coming to the market from a lot of
different angles," he said.
 Reuter
