MTST Update: 10Q
MTST posted their 10Q today. A few interesting nuggets in there. They break out revenues by segment as follows:
........NAS.... NTM..... Total
Net Revenues
1999 $ 2,790 $8,507 $11,297
1998 3,063 7,048 10,111
GrossProfit
1999 1,472 4,679 6,151
1998 2,060 3,895 5,955
NAS = network attached storage, or their "WebZerver" (thin servers, like Cobalt Networks). NTM = Network tests and measuresments (their cable testing products, like Omniscanner).
Note that their NTM sales went up sharply over last year. This reflects introduciton of the new Omniscanner. It flew out of the box on August 23. Not bad for just one month of sales data.
The NAS data (WebZerver) is tricky, so bear with me. The Company stated "Third quarter NAS revenue
increased significantly over the 1998 quarter, but the increase was not sufficient to make up for the loss of revenue resulting from the Company's exit from the integrated high-end CD-ROM enterprise systems and DiscPort/CD tower business. Looking at the ear-on-year segmental sales the reader sees a decrease in NAS sales. Assumming the company is being straight with us (and they better be, SEC is watching them closely!), WebZerver sales went up but did not offset discontinuance of the CD/Tower segment earlier. In other words, NAS sales for this quarter represents pure WebZerver sales, while 1998 NAS sales represented their old CD-Tower + WebZerver businesses. It would have been nice if they just broke out WebZerver sales separately. All we have from the company is "NAS DiscZerver revenue increased significantly since its introduction in the second quarter of 1998, but was not able to offset the decline in revenue caused by decreased distribution sales and the Company's exit from the enterprise systems business."
On other fronts, Ingram Micro is no longer a customer (down from 13% of sales last year!) but Gray Electric picked up. They also lost TechData Corporation. But International sales have picked up dramatically.
They restated earnings for part of 1998, not that substantially different from the previous statments. This is like the third time this has happened to MTST. Hopefully, the new management under Vince Hren (formerly of Three-Five Systems) will clean up the mess. He has a sterling reputation, attested to by regulars on the TFS boards on Yahoo!
Folks, this company is in the midst of a turnaround. The cable testers will be the bread and butter, the think servers are the wild card.
Respectfully submitted,
DocStone |
