on line chat transcript:
centurasoft.com
The Centura Software Web Chat started at 1:00pm PST and ended at 2:00pm on
December 22, 1999.
The transcript from the questions and answers is below. We have edited out
comments not related to the web chat such as those used by users to refresh
their displays. We have also edited out questions that were not sent to the web
chat moderator (username: question).
Scott Broomfield, President and CEO of Centura Software responded using the
username AllSuccess.
AllSuccess says Greetings from All Success: Before we begin, a message from
the attorney's: Safe Harbor Clause: - Except for the historical information
contained herein, the matters discussed in this news release are forward
looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including but not
limited to the Company's failure to timely develop new products which gain
market acceptance, failure of the Company's significant resellers or
distributors to renew agreements, delays in the timing of orders for the
Company's products and services, significant changes in the business
environment in which the Company operates, the effectiveness of the
Company's management in executing the Company's recent strategic
changes, and the other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's SEC
reports, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended
December 31, 1998.
Please post all questions as a PRIVATE message to username question.
Thanks.
Its nice to be online again, we do this about 4 times a year to help our
shareholders and customers understand more about Centura. Please
understand that we are in a quiet period as we are near the end of our
quarter. Accordingly, we will not comment with respect to any financially
oriented questions regarding the quarter and year. We plan to issue Q4
results on Feb 9, 2000.
What we plan today, is talk about the strategy and direction of Centura and
answer questions that you may have regarding our business today. Without
any further ado, lets begin the session!
gibraltar99: we see articles everywhere about the WAP revolution.
Motorola, Ericsson, IBM, Palm have things have things working now. Pls. help
us understand how CNTR's prod can fit in, and if such companies would
license it for use in their own developments. Or are we all competing with
one another for best WAP solutions?
AllSuccess says WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) is the
communication method that is used to connect with phones.
Where the Internet talks TCP/IP, phones will talk WAP. Our
agreement with Nocom is to combine their WAP technology and
our eSNAPP so that eSNAPP communicates using WAP. WAP is
becoming the standard by way of mobile communication. The
phone will be one type of Internet connected Information
Appliance device. And over the next few years, because so many
people have phones, this will likely be the way many people will
access the Internet. However, it is still about extending the
enterprise information to the person that needs it -- this is
Centura's direction
matasoft: What is your outlook on new product lines in the next fiscal year.
Do you expect to add new products or focus more on further developing
existing products?
AllSuccess says There are three legs to our product offerings:
development, deployment and distribution. The next version of
our development environment, CTD, is in beta. We have recently
introduced SQLBase Safegarde, Velocis 3.0 and RDM 5.0 to the
market, these are our deployment offerings. Our first to market
connectivity appliance solution eSNAPP was recently released
and completes our end-to-end e-business and information
appliance solutions.
us10mill: A number of big announcements have been made recently but
there has been no mention of potential revenue from the deals. When can
we expect to hear details regarding revenue?
AllSuccess says Our next earnings announcement will be on Feb
9, 2000, where we will discuss in detail Q4 performance and our
yearly earnings. However, to help set the right expectation,
most of what we are doing at Centura is deployment in nature.
What this means is that the products that we offer to our
customers need to be designed in their product releases, so do
not expect near term revenue spikes as we announce contracts.
us10mill: Are there any products that directly compete with eSNAPP? If so
which ones and who develops the product? If not do you envisage a
competing product from one of the major vendors e.g. Oracle will be released
soon?
AllSuccess says No, not at this time. eSNAPP offers the customer
a dynamic way to extend their enterprise to those people who
need business information.. It is the first server centric solution
which enables control of the business intelligence on the server.
The application and the data does not run on the device. This
gives the person using the hand-held computer the opportunity
to connect real-time to the data accessing it securely.
AllSuccess says By the way, eSNAPP stands for "Enterprise
Secure Network For Appliances". We think of eSNAPP for
information appliances as routers are to the Internet.
gibraltar99: What confuses me(us) is in estimating product demand. Cntr's
rdm and safegarde and esnapp seem incredible, but are we in a sea of
competing product.
AllSuccess says You have made a statement that I agree with.
Estimating product demand in a emerging market is very difficult,
since there is nothing to forecast against. We do believe, that
this 5th wave of information appliance computing will be
material. Accordingly, over time there will be a great deal of
competition. We believe we have a time to market advantage
and unique products (dynamic access and security) solving REAL
life problems today of extending business information to its
furthest reaches.
AllSuccess says Centura is uniquely positioned to be a leader in
the burgeoning e-business and information appliance market for
a number of reasons which I would like to summarize herewith.
1. The acquisition of Raima Corporation coupled with successful
product lines including, ultra-small footprint databases, RDM and
Velocis; 2. The formation of Centura Embedded Systems in
Japan; 3. First to market with eSNAPP, leading appliance
connectivity solution and 4. Our continued execution of our focus
on e-business and information appliance strategies through
successful customer wins and business alliances.
kerry: Scott, are you positioned to be the market leader in wireless security
when the increased bandwidth is available in July 2000?
AllSuccess says A very good question. We believe that one of
the things that makes the IA market segment attractive is the
ever increasing bandwidth we are seeing in the market today.
This will make it easier to extend information to appliance type
devices than ever before. I don't know what is to be announced
in July 2000, but we are able to leverage the developments in
wireless technology and provide business information across
any of those networks.
pgr634tr: People are not happy with your PR dept. Can you enlighten us on
any future improvements?
AllSuccess says As a public company, we publish information
which reflects our direction and successes that are material. We
do not press release every contract that we sign. As an
example, we do not normally press release products in beta. We
have a 4-month forward looking press schedule and we intend
to be steady at the helm.
AllSuccess says A brief update on our platforms that we support.
The IA segment has a number of different attributes; handheld
PCs, PDAs, smart devices and phones. Each of these operate on
different platforms. Therefore, our product direction is to
maintain and enhance the top 4 or 5 of these operating
systems. In the HP/PDA segment we are standardizing on Palm
OS and Win CE. For Smart devices and phones, our platforms will
be VxWorks and WAP. Linux is likely to play in both market
segments, and we are positioned well as reflected through our
recent database offerings supporting Linux.
cmoore: can you please explain what efforts have been taken to increase
sponsorship within the Wall Street community?
AllSuccess says Yes. Ric Lucien, our CFO, and I have made
numerous trips recently to a variety of institutional investors,
brokers and analysts to talk about Centura, our vision and our
plans to grow the business. We are doing this in concert with
the implementation of an internal investor relations program
focused on a consistent and open dialog with the wall street
community.
AllSuccess says I would like to answer question that has not
been asked. "The so-what question"? What I mean by this is
basically the fact that this is not about technology and products,
this is about solving REAL-world problems. Every CEO of every
company that I know is concerned about making decisions that
maximize the value of their businesses. Centura helps
companies maximize their value! We do this in a number of
ways; 1. We can simply extend their enterprise to the Internet
and appliances, 2. This results in better and faster decisions for
those businesses, 3. It is leveragable because we do not
require these businesses to rewrite their applications, 4. The
availability of our products today allows our customers a
significant time to market advantages.
AllSuccess says In closing, I would like to thank all of you for
participating in today's chat. I found the questions interesting
and I hope you found our answers informative. I am sorry that
we did not get to all the questions but many did relate to
financials, which we will disclose on Feb. 9, 2000 after our quiet
period. The transcript for this chat will be available on our
web-site within 24 hours. I would like to leave you with one final
thought and that is that the
AllSuccess says I would like to leave you with one final thought
and that is that the entire Centura management team is in
alignment with shareholder interest to build long term
shareholder value! And last but not least, put on your red
reindeer noses, stuff your stockings and clink your glasses to
the new millennium. I wish you ALL SUCCESS. Sincerely, Scott
Broomfield.
There were some questions that were not answered or not answered directly.
We did not answer financial or stock oriented questions as Centura Software is
currently in its quiet period with regards to 4th quarter and 1999 earnings as
noted in the opening statements. We did group some questions into one topic
and responded with a singular answer. A couple of questions arrived late so we
did not have the time to respond to them.
Thank you for participating in the Centura Software Web Chat. |
