Later this month, Sapiens International Corp NV will announce ObjectPool, its IBM Corp mainframe to Unix and personal computer communications software and application development tools. ObjectPool is essentially middleware that enables users to read and write to network, relational, flat file or Open Data Base Connectivity-compliant databases from multiple sources. The product is in beta test now and will be available by the fourth quarter – and support for third party tools will be added by the end of the year. Meanwhile, lower than expected first quarter figures and the need to get rid of duplicate staff at Sapiens International’s acquisition of last May, SmartStar Corp, based in Goleta, California, has led the Netherlands Antilles-registered company, now run from Cary, North Carolina, to reorganise its internal structure and reduce its workforce. It will lay off 8% of its staff worldwide, the equivalent of 40 employees. Redundancies will be mainly from middle management and administrative posts. Staff cuts mean it will take a one-off hit of $1.5m in the second quarter, which ended June 30, but expects to save $2.5m as of July 1. However, due to lower than anticipated sales and undisclosed levels of increased investment in research and development on such products as ObjectPool, the firm expects to make losses in the second and third quarters. As a result, it intends to try and build up sales via third party channels to lower costs and increase market penetration – at the moment, it sells about 90% of its products direct, but it aims to have a 70-30 split by 1995. Sapiens has also reorganised its business structure into three new units to service international strategic accounts, the insurance sector and direct marketing of its Ideo rapid application development environment. Furthermore, Europe has been split into three geographic regions, each headed by its own senior manager. Former head of international distribution channels at Ingres, Tim Shears, will head the Northern region, which inclues the UK, Ireland and the Nordic countries. Albert Defossez, who set up Sapiens operations in the Benelux countries 18 months ago, is to take the helm in Central Europe, which comprises the Benelux countries, Germany, Switzerland and Austria; and Saadia Esoudri, who established the French office, will look after the South, which encompasses France, Spain and North Africa.
