Application development company, Wall Data, has reported a first quarter operating loss of $11.69m on revenue down 50% to $20.07m from $40.4m for the same period last year. The loss compares to a $2.2m profit in the year-ago period. The announcement is in line with Wall’s alert earlier this month that it would post losses for the quarter. Losses per share stood at $1.12 against a per share gain of $0.22 in 1998. The Kirkland, Washington-based company lost $6.5m or 65 cents a share in fiscal 1999.
Wall, known for its Rumba data access tools, ascribed declining revenue for the three months ending July 31 to the continued effect of its sales force reorganization in the preceding quarter and slackening enterprise software demand amid Y2K jitters. It has exited the corporate portal market pulling the plug on its new enterprise portal product Cyberprise citing crippling costs.
The latter move was announced on August 12 alongside the resignation of founder and chief executive, John Wall, and comes despite analysts tipping corporate portal space as the next growth in the internet market with projected earnings opportunities of $14m by 2002. The company boasted $9.1m for Cyberise for the third-quarter of fiscal 1999.
Wall said the extensive changes in its operating structure will cause lower sales volume for the remainder of the year. It will incur second-quarter restructuring charges between $14m and $16m made up of severance costs, facility closures and around $6m in non-cash asset write-offs. Wall’s coffers will swell $2.9m for the second quarter from the sale of its 10% equity stake in Seattle-based XML software company, Datachannel, announced, Friday August 13.
