Reuters -- Thursday, Oct 21, 11:05 pm
biz.yahoo.com
[Comment: Don't forget that in the wonderful world of Internetland, growth-through-acquisitions can play well in the market -- see DCLK, for example. Aggressive expansion in Europe is overdue for SPYG: I've wondered for some time why the company doesn't have offices in Finland, Sweden, or Germany. To date, the only European office is in Great Britain. I'm excited about the idea of partnering with content and service providers. I would be especially excited to see SPYG partner with ERP and B2B firms: SAP, PSFT, BAANF, SE, ARBA, CMRC, CNQR, VERT, CMDX. This market space has immense potential. Others they should approach: DIS, MAT (which really needs a blockbuster software play, in light of its problems with The Learning Company), BNBN, financials, etc., etc., etc.]
INTERVIEW -- Spyglass sees more acquisitions
CHICAGO, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Internet software provider Spyglass Inc. (NasdaqNM:SPYG - news) said Thursday it plans to accelerate the expansion of its business through acquisitions, joint ventures, licensing agreements and partnerships, particularly in Europe.
In a telephone interview with Reuters, Gary Vilchick, chief financial officer of Spyglass, said the company was becoming more aggressive to provide customers with an end-to-end solution for installing Internet technology into non-PC devices.
"What you need to look for going forward is that we're going to step up our level of aggressiveness in making acquisitions, joint ventures and partnerships. Specifically, the two key areas we're focusing on is the interactive television markets and the mobile data markets," Vilchick said. "We have capital in place to do all of those."
The company announced last month that it would be selling its SurfWatch content filtering software to JSB Software Technologies in a deal that would give Spyglass about a $27 million pre-tax gain.
Spyglass provides strategic consulting services and software to enable customers, such as Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news), Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT - news) and Sony Corp. to integrate Internet technology into their products.
Citing research showing that non-PC information appliances, such as set-top boxes and cell phones, will dominate the Internet technology market by 2004, Vilchick said Spyglass would be looking for partnerships with content providers and service providers to offer customers a more complete service.
Until now, Spyglass had mostly focused on strengthening its technology products. Partnerships with content and service providers would allow Spyglass to offer a more complete product beyond technology and enable it to help wireless service providers receive PC-directed information for
wireless communication.
He also said Spyglass would be heavily expanding into Europe by adding software engineering operations and professional services in addition to the current sales operation.
"The European (wireless) market in particular is far ahead of our Asian and U.S. market. There is an enormous opportunity for Spyglass to be successful there. We will likely be looking acquisitions in Europe because we think we can do this quickly," he said.
Spyglass on Wednesday reported a 49 percent revenue increase in its fiscal fourth quarter to $9.2 million driven by licensing and professional services businesses. It also reported a net income of $335,000 compared with a loss of $672,000 a year ago.
Spyglass shares closed up 50.6 percent at 14-11/16 on Nasdaq. |
