JSB Software Technologies Plc, the Cheshire, UK-based internet software company, is planning to raise $50m on the Easdaq market and abandon its quotation on London’s lackluster Alternative Investment Market as it pushes hard to establish its SurfControl software as the dominant product in the internet access control software.
In its first quarter through August 31, JSB recorded a net loss of $1.4m, up from a loss of $46,000, on revenue that climbed 52.8% to $2.2m. More significantly, revenue from SurfControl was $787,000, up from $30,000 a year earlier, while the company’s traditional product MultiView, which offers connectivity between desktops and Unix server applications, showed only 2.2% growth to $1.4m.
MultiView is, for the moment, a cash cow that has financed the SurfControl project. With the penetration of internet access control products only running at 1% – yet with estimates that 50% of companies will need this kind of application in the next few years – the market has been variously estimated at growing to anywhere between $250m and $1.25bn by 2003.
JSB is one of three major players in the market and, following its acquisition last month of rival SurfWatch from Spyglass Inc (CI No 3,752), seems poised to enjoy rapid growth.
