The CRM vendor reported a loss of $1.4m on revenue of $14.9m for the fourth quarter 2004. License revenue was just $4.1m. Overall revenue was up from the $13m of the year ago quarter while the company reduced its loss down from $1.6m. Other positive signs included an increase in cash and cash equivalents from the year ago quarter as well as sequentially.
For the full year the company posted a loss of $2.8m on revenue of $58.4m. License revenue contributed $13.7m to the total, up 13% compared to the previous year.
The outlook for 2005 is variable with Onyx expecting a poor Q5 with both overall and license revenue falling, due to seasonality effects, but is looking for improvements in the two following quarters and optimistic about turning a profit during 2005.
While maintaining that she was pleased with progress CEO Janice Anderson said the company was undergoing change and this was impacting results. We have moved from a small to medium to an enterprise level provider and we have not completed aligning our business model and partners yet. The larger deal sized are contributing to Onyx’s lumpy results as the company makes the change.
Although Onyx will continue to provide for SMB’s she said that customer analysis showed that the company received two thirds of its revenue from enterprise level customers with annual revenue of $2bn or above. During 2003 about half of its revenue was from large enterprises. Although Onyx is thought to be a SMB player Anderson said that the numbers showed otherwise.
Although the numbers suggest that Onyx is halting the financial slide there is a question over whether this is sustainable given that its large enterprise stance is out of kilter with the rest of the industry, in which vendors are trying to position themselves to meet the needs of the SMB’s who, as a group, are the biggest spenders.
