Iona records drop in revenues


15 Jul 2004

Iona’s second quarter revenues fell broadly in line with the warning it issued two weeks ago, with sales of US$15.2m and a net loss of US$1.9m. Iona’s results were down from the US$16.4m reported for the same period last year.

In recent weeks, Chris Horne, Iona’s founder and CEO, blamed the decline on a less-than-expected demand for the company’s Artix range of products.

However, this afternoon Horne claimed to be seeing stability in its CORBA middleware business and that its Artix pipeline continues to develop.

He said: “Our Artix pipeline is developing and feedback from customers that have deployed Artix indicates that Iona’s solution is providing real value. Given this, we remain confident in the long-term success of our product offerings.

“In the past quarter, enterprise IT buyers have been more cautious than anticipated in their adoption of innovative technologies, including our web services integration product Artix. Nonetheless, IONA remains a strong company that is well-positioned to help its customers derive new business value from their installed IT assets.”

Iona’s chief financial officer Dan Demmer said that the company is doing everything possible to achieve sustainable performance. “Our CORBA business remains cash generative, our balance sheet is strong and our cost base is stable. Our expectation is that these assets, together with the investments made in our Artix family of products, will build enduring value for our customers, partners and shareholders.”

Going forward, the company said it expects revenue for the third quarter of 2004 to be in the range of US$15m to US$17m and total expenses, including both cost of revenue and operating expenses, to be in the range of US$16m to US$17m.

By John Kennedy