A change of name was not enough to change the fortunes of Gupta Corp after two full years of losses. Gupta, which re-christened itself Centura Software Corp last year, has now changed its senior management team and board of directors, as it attempts to re-position itself once again as an embedded database and application development tools company (CI No 3,290). Scott Broomfield is the company’s new chief executive officer, replacing Sam Inman, who stays on the board of directors. Also still on the board will be Earl Stahl, who steps down as chief technical officer, but will continue as adviser and consultant. A replacement has not yet been found. Out altogether are former chief financial officer Richard Gelhaus, replaced by John Bowman, and board members William Grabe and Max Hopper. New board members are Jack King, chief executive officer of Zitel Corp, and Phillip Koen, chief financial officer of Pointcast Inc. The new team says it intends to make sure that Centura’s products are visible to its target customers, namely independent software developers and corporate application developers. Centura/Gupta returned to profitability in its third quarter, announced at the end of October, with net earnings of $673,000, compared with $97,000 the previous year, although it payed out a further $563,000 in re- structuring charges. But net losses for the nine months were $1.68m on revenues for the nine months of $43.4m, down from $46.5m last time. Centura still has a user base of over 1 million for products such as the SQLBase embedded database and SQL Windows application development tools, as well as the newer Centura Team Developer tools. Earlier this year it failed to acquire InfoSpinner Inc, a web tools developer it hoped might help it open up some new markets. Sam Inman, who became president and chief operating officer of Gupta back in April 1995, was the man who took over full control of the company from Umang Gupta himself at the start of 1996, and he heralded his appointment by firing 17% of the workforce (CI No 2,822). Chief financial officer Gelhaus lasted only 18 months in the job, having replaced previous chief financial officer Richard Heaps, branded as incompetent by auditors Arthur Andersen.
