Novell, the world's second biggest Linux provider pushed into shopping itself, earned $19.9 million, or six cents a share, in its second fiscal quarter ended April 30 on revenues of $204 million, down 5.4% year-over-year and roughly in line with estimates.

Operating income was also down $5 million to $30 million. Total deferred revenue was $615 million, down from $659 million year-over-year. Novell's not getting the Microsoft tickle it did last year. It seems Microsoft bought SUSE certificates at a 45% discount and now any revenues come in at an 85% discount.

Novell said it would probably see below expected revenues of $205 million-$210 million this quarter.

It's got $980 million in the bank, down from $991 million sequentially, a factor in its valuation.

There's still an unsolicited $2 billion offer on the table from the Elliott Associates hedge fund to sell out. It contends the bid undervalues the company. It was supposed to have closed the book on alternate offers last week ahead of an auction. The move could see it split up. It's refusing to answer any questions about the situation.

It did however claim that "uncertainty" affected its results, particularly its identity results, complaining that deals were either lost or slipped and that contract signings had lengthened or it wasn't invited in. Under the circumstances people are reluctant to make long-term platform commitments, it said.

Without the speed bump it said identity results would have been better by 14%. Any loss however only amounts to a few million dollars.

Otherwise CEO Ron Hovsepian said, "We are experiencing good strategic momentum with the execution of our intelligent workload management strategy. As customers increasingly adopt virtualization and cloud computing models, they need tools to help them securely manage and optimize their computing resources. Since announcing our strategy, we have shipped several products to help customers build, secure, manage and measure workloads. In addition, we are very excited about the new partnerships we have forged with several service providers to extend Novell's reach into the market."

The company's stock price is still hovering expectantly above the $5.75 a share that Elliott bid. It closed Thursday at $5.90.