The CEO for battered U.S. anti-virus software vendor Network Associates Inc. (NAI) is making the rounds in Europe to assure customers, investors and pundits that the company is ready to put its bad times behind it and get back to business.
“We hit some bumps in the road. We changed our business model in December and I want to share with you some of the things we are doing to turn this company around,” said George Samenuk, NAI’s CEO for the last seven weeks, to a group of journalists in London on Tuesday.
Samenuk was referring to the numerous problems NAI has been weathering for the past two months, beginning last December with the announcement that NAI expected to lose between US$130 million and $140 million for its fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, on revenue 25 per cent lower than once predicted. Along with plummeting stock prices and investor lawsuits, the drastically changed financial forecast also brought with it the resignations of NAI’s CEO William Larson, president Peter Watkins and chief financial officer Prabhat Goyal.