Communication software developer WRQ Inc intends to increase its international business to an overall 60% share within the next five years, the company said. The Seattle, Washington-based operation is looking to Asia to boost its international revenues, which currently account for 40% of its business. The middle of the year will see WRQ opening its second Asian office – the first opened three years ago in Singapore – in Tokyo, Japan. The privately held company has reported its best financial year to date, revenue hitting $138.5m for the year to December 31, up 6.4% from $130.2m last year. The 17-year-old company’s main product line is called Reflection, a series of products designed to enable multiple host environments to work together. The latest offering in this family is the Reflection Network File System Gateway, an NT-Unix integration product that will be available in April. The product is targeted at large organizations who want to hang on to their Unix systems, but also want to implement the Windows NT environment. WRQ product marketing manager Dave Hebert said the NFS Gateway operates as a translator product that sits between the Unix and NT servers, making the process transparent to the desktop machines connected to the servers. The product is still in beta testing at the moment, and when it does hit the streets in April, it will contend with Intergraph Corp’s Access NFS Gateway product, which has been available since October last year. Hebert is confident there is a bright and profitable future in this market, and believes Unix will be around for a long time yet. But that hasn’t stopped WRQ starting to work on web and Java-based connection products. Steve Cauble, UK and Ireland country manager explains that WRQ has increasingly seen customers getting connected to the internet or installing intranets, and then they start to think they could use that infrastructure for a lot more. WRQ will target its existing customers with these new offerings. The company is reluctant to expand on the specifics but says there will be developments in the near future.
