Susan,
ASDS....3xbottom break...opportunity to add...9 very possible here.
WPNE
I'm adding WPNE to my stocks to watch....big changes occurring...entering ASP market... A good entry if we can get it is 19.5-20 It's selling off this morning and I consider this a buying opportunity.
4.0M Fourth Quarter Revenue Marks Record 86% Increase Over Prior Year;
Fourth Quarter MeetingPoint Sales Increase 117% From Prior Year;
Quarterly Per Share Net Loss Lowest in Company's History
NASHUA, N.H., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- White Pine Software, Inc.
(Nasdaq: WPNE) today announced results for the fourth quarter ended
December 31, 1999.
White Pine reported an 86% increase in net revenue for the fourth quarter
of 1999 of $4.0 million, compared to net revenue of $2.2 million in the prior
year period. The Company recorded a net loss of $1.1 million, or ($0.10) per
share, versus a net loss of $2.0 million, or ($0.19) per share, in the
corresponding quarter of the prior year. For the twelve months ended
December 31, 1999, the Company reported a 54% increase in net revenue of
$12.0 million, compared with $7.8 million in the prior year. Net loss for the
year ended December 31, 1999 was $4.8 million, or ($0.46) per share in
contrast with $8.4 million or ($0.86) per share in the previous year.
Both quarterly and annual revenue figures mark record highs for the
Company. Net per share loss is also the lowest recorded since the Company's
going public in late 1996.
The Company also received $20 million in gross proceeds in late December
1999 from private placements of its common stock with an affiliate of GE
Capital and three other investors. The funds are earmarked for the Company's
expansion and launch of its Applications Service Provider (ASP) business.
The Company's record revenue numbers were driven largely by increased
MeetingPoint sales, including sales of service agreements associated with
MeetingPoint sales. Fourth quarter revenues from the MeetingPoint
conferencing server increased 117% over prior year, to $1.9 million from
$870,000 in the corresponding quarter of the prior year. MeetingPoint revenue
for the twelve months ended December 31, 1999 was $5.7 million, a 93% increase
over the prior year. Comprising nearly half of White Pine's quarterly and
annual revenues, MeetingPoint was named "Product of the Year" for the third
consecutive year by CTI magazine. MeetingPoint Windows 98/NT and Sun Solaris
platforms were joined by a MeetingPoint for Linux offering that began shipping
late in the fourth quarter.
Quarterly revenue was also supported by strong CU-SeeMe client sales of
$1.5 million, demonstrating 84% growth over the comparable quarter of 1998.
Annual CU-SeeMe client sales of $4.1 million represented a 45% increase over
the previous year. Both quarterly and annual CU-SeeMe revenue increases can
be attributed to dramatically higher sales of the CU-SeeMe camera bundle
during the typically robust holiday season. Downloads of the client software
from the Company's website also increased significantly over the previous
year. The Company attributes the increased download volume to the higher
visibility offered by its CU-SeeMeWorld portal site.
The Company's net loss in the quarter was a significant improvement over
the loss in the contrasting quarter of the prior year. The improved bottom
line was due primarily to the higher revenue volume, offset in part by higher
operating expenses in the most recent quarter. Fourth quarter operating
expenses of $4.2 million were 16% higher than operating expenses in the same
quarter of the previous year, and 20% higher than the third quarter. These increases were due primarily to headcount growth and consulting expense within
the quarter, specifically in the area of research and development, necessary
to support the growing project load that has resulted from joint development
partnerships secured in the second half of 1999, as well as to seed the
Company's nascent ASP business. Also contributing to higher operating
expenses was a companywide bonus accrual booked at year-end, and the negative
variance in the most recent quarter of a one-time $240 thousand reversal of
legal reserves booked in the fourth quarter of the prior year.
Total operating expense for the twelve months ended December 31, 1999 was
$14.4 million; a 5% decline from operating expense of $15.1 million in the
prior year. The decline was primarily attributable to decreased marketing
programs in the most recent year, a trend the Company expects to reverse given
the accelerated adoption of its products and substantial growth opportunities.
"This has been a remarkable year for White Pine, in which we have turned a
very significant corner," commented Killko Caballero, White Pine's CEO and
President. "Within the past twelve months, we have introduced more
groundbreaking technologies in the forms of Continuous Presence, Streaming
Media Integration, and CU-Web, observed the expansion of broadband that we had
long anticipated, and experienced a 54% increase in annual revenue. We are
forging the partnerships that will be key to our success in the coming year,
and laying the foundation for our ASP business, a strategy that will provide
us the means to accelerate the adoption of video-enhanced applications over
the Internet."
"With the market now embracing Internet communications, we are finding
ourselves ideally positioned to leverage our technological lead by investing
in a business model that will enable ISPs, portals, and businesses to rapidly
and easily enhance their own businesses with integrated visual communications
over the Internet," Mr. Caballero continued. "The market is ready for
integrated visual communications, but enterprises and portals are not
necessarily ready nor able to provide the infrastructure necessary to get the
deployment off the ground rapidly. We believe our years of experience in
developing and managing video communications over the Internet make us ideally
suited for hosting these types of applications."
"White Pine has already established itself as a videoconferencing leader.
Videoconferencing as a standalone application is interesting; but adding the
benefit of visual communications to a portal's or an enterprise's existing
applications is absolutely compelling. The one pervasive downside of Internet
business has always been the lack of contact with an actual human being. Call
centers, help desks, focus groups, and basic chat rooms immediately become
more valuable entities with the enhancement of seeing who you are talking to.
We are receiving a great deal of interest from customers who want to provide
video-enhanced services, but are tentative about executing the actual
deployment. Hosting these services breaks down the most formidable barrier
between the enterprise and adoption of the technology. We believe the most
effective way to facilitate the business-to-business and business-to-consumer
models is to show the world how it is done."
The Company recorded a number of other significant events within the
fourth quarter:
-- White Pine introduced CU-SeeMe Web, or CU-Web, the industry's first
web-based videoconferencing client. The technology enables live audio,
video and text chat to be embedded in a standard web browser. CU-Web
opens up a whole new world of applications for the Internet, enabling
on-demand Visual Instant Messaging, web-based videochat(TM), live
interactive web events, and face-to-face, on-line call centers for
ecommerce and support services. Novell and Belgian telecommunications
carrier Belgacom both signed deals to offer CU-Web to their customers,
and CU-Web was showcased in presidential candidate George W. Bush's
videochat session with New Hampshire schoolchildren. Although it was
not yet shipping commercially in 1999, CU-Web was named "Best of Show"
at Fall Internet World, Internet Telephony magazine's "1999 Product of
the Year," and Call Center Solution magazine's "1999 Product of the
Year." The Company expects to begin shipping CU-Web in the first
quarter of 2000.
-- MeetingPoint conference server for the RedHat Linux operating system
began shipping in December 1999. The Linux solution for MeetingPoint
has been specifically designed to meet the needs of Internet Service
Providers (ISPs), Applications Service Providers (ASPs) and other
carriers that have standardized on Linux as the platform of choice for
delivering a host of value-added communications, conferencing and
collaboration services to their customers. This version of
MeetingPoint also offers drastically increased scalability through
enhanced support of multiprocessor systems and multiple network
interfaces. As a result, a single MeetingPoint server now scales to
several hundred concurrent users.
-- White Pine and FVC.COM entered into a strategic partnership to develop
and market IP video solutions and services. The agreement consists of
two components: a joint development relationship to provide complete
IP video communications solutions for broadband networks, and
reciprocal OEM agreements to distribute the MeetingPoint and V-Gate
products.
-- Sonera Oy, an international forerunner in telecom and Internet
services, became the first operator in Finland to introduce a new
generation of communications applications that merge the Internet and
advanced telephony services together. These services, which are
facilitated by White Pine's MeetingPoint conference server, will be run
over Sonera's state-of-the-art IP communications network.
-- White Pine and MAX Internet Communications Inc., a provider of
solutions for accelerated video communications over the Internet
communications, entered into a joint development and distribution
agreement to provide new low-cost, high performance solutions for
desktop-based videoconferencing. White Pine agreed to develop its core
CU-SeeMe videochat client technology to interoperate with the MAX
i.c.Live 3600, a PC Internet Media Processor card which accelerates the
processing of live, synchronized audio and video.
-- Shortly after the close of the fourth quarter, White Pine announced
several changes to its Board of Directors. Arthur Bruno retired from
his post as Chairman, and Killko Caballero, the Company's CEO and
President, was appointed to replace Mr. Bruno. Joseph J. Esposito was
appointed to the board of directors. Mr. Esposito was the President
and CEO of Tribal Voice, a provider of instant messaging, interactive
communications and online community solutions, until he effected the
sale of the company to CMGI late in 1999.
-- The Company reversed the final $50,000 reserve for the "RSI suits" upon
notification that the two remaining lawsuits had been dismissed during
1999. The original reserve was booked in anticipation of possible fees
and losses that could arise from the "RSI suits", or "repetitive stress
injuries" suits brought against a keyboard manufacturing predecessor of
White Pine. Of the six original suits, four were resolved in 1998 at
no expense to White Pine, and $240 thousand of the reserve was
reversed. In 1999, the two remaining suits were similarly resolved,
and the remaining $50 thousand reserve was reversed. Subsequent to
this transaction, there are no outstanding lawsuits against the Company
The Company plans to expand sales of its videoconferencing products while
concurrently launching its ASP business. The cornerstone of the ASP model is
the Company's CU-Web technology and Software Development Kit (SDK) that will
provide portals, ISPs, and enterprises with the tools necessary to "videochat
their sites". Portals will have the option of customizing and managing their
own site and network, or contracting with White Pine to handle the
customization, network design, implementation, and consulting services. In
addition, the Company will offer conference hosting, enabling the customer to
offer all the advantages of video and audio enhanced applications to its users
without the concerns or expense associated with ongoing managed deployment.
About White Pine Software, Inc.
White Pine develops software solutions that facilitate worldwide video and
audio communication and data collaboration across the Internet. White Pine's
CU-SeeMe(R) Web provides the industry's first multipoint video instant
messaging over the internet. White Pine's CU-SeeMe(R) Pro and
MeetingPoint(TM) create a client-server solution that allows multiple users to
participate simultaneously in conferences over the Internet. ClassPoint(TM)
is a MeetingPoint(TM) add-on that provides a complete solution for corporate
training and distance learning. The Company supports multiple platforms,
including Windows 95/98, NT, Sun Solaris, and Red Hat Linux. White Pine
Software can be found on the World Wide Web at wpine.com .
CU-SeeMe Web can be experienced at www.cuseemeworld.com .
CU-SeeMe Web was named 1999 Internet Telephony magazine's "Product of the
Year" award for the multimedia conferencing category, and Call Center Solution
magazine's "1999 Product of the Year" in the interactive video web
communications category. |
