Hey Jane what's up with this?
Jane> "Important to also know SGI bottom. SGIJapan (connected) is hyping, with ONT, a rollout of on demand video. my understnading, limited research that it is, is that this is a faltering for the moment activity. But the oil industry also can use SGI. IBM and SUNW both down, down."
On2 May Have to Sell
Story Filed: Monday, August 12, 2002 12:05 PM EST
Aug 12, 2002 (Internet.com via COMTEX) -- The head of video compression software company On2 Technologies said a sale of the company is among its options as it looks for a way out of a cash crunch.
"It wouldn't be our first choice," said Doug McIntyre, the chief executive of the New York-based On2, when asked whether a sale was in the plans. "But all I can say is when you talk to customers, a lot of things can happen. Some may come to you and say we want to buy the whole thing," and some "instead of buying it later, may buy it now."
On Friday, the video compression software company announced that it did not have sufficient liquidity to last it through the end of this year. Compounding the problem, the company said, is a difficult economic environment for raising capital.
As of the end of June, On2 listed just under $321,00 in cash. Its loss for the second quarter was about $1.8 million on sales of about $513,678.
With customers and alliances that include Apple Computer , RealNetworks and SeaChange , a digital video software company, On2 may have friends in the right places interested in kicking its tires.
In addition, On2 just announced that America Online's Nullsoft multimedia player, Winamp3, now supports On2's VP3.2 codec directly in the NSV (NullSoft Video) format. The deal puts AOL on its customer list on news that Nullsoft has rebuilt its Winamp MP3 player and is expected to put even more muscle behind the format.
"It is very gratifying to get this kind of acknowledgment from the Nullsoft developers, knowing that they can chose from a great many video codec options," said McIntyre. "We hope that this means accelerated adoption of the On2 VP format."
Accelerated adoption would be key for a company that came to market in the late 1990's with an untested business model built around streaming video on a PC. McIntyre said On2 has seen an outpouring of interest from customers since it announced its cash crunch.
"We're hoping we'll get the short term problem fixed in next few days, which would allow us to pursue our business plan," he said. That includes branching out from PC-based streaming to include more deals with set-top box makers and consumer electronics devices.
"It's an unfortunate way to have to do business, but given what's happened (with the market in jitters over a rash of accounting scandals), you've got to disclose if you even scratch yourself." |
