Altris Software Announces Restructuring
Business Wire - April 14, 1998 08:46
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SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 14, 1998--Altris Software Inc.
(NASDAQ/NMS:ALTS) announced today that the Board of Directors has appointed Roger
Erickson as Chief Executive Officer of the Company effective April 8, 1998. In addition, Mr.
Erickson will serve as a Director of the Company. Mr. Erickson was appointed Interim Chief
Executive Officer last week after the resignation of Jay Tanna.
Larry Unruh, a Director of the Company, stated, "The Company has adopted a new operating
plan and the Board of Directors believes Roger Erickson brings an excellent combination of
leadership abilities, technical skills and knowledge of the Company's customer base and
market to implement the plan."
Roger Erickson added, "I am excited about the opportunity to lead the Company. The
management team has developed the new operating plan to address three specific goals: (1)
reduce costs and position the Company to generate cash from operations; (2) focus the
technical talents of the Company's employees under more disciplined management in an effort
to deliver solutions in an efficient and cost effective manner; and (3) concentrate our sales
efforts in our strongest vertical markets while providing increased support to our channel
partners."
As the first step in the plan, Altris lowered payroll costs by 25% versus its position at the end
of 1997. Although the Company is also cutting costs in other areas, the largest single cost
element of the Company is payroll and associated benefits. The reduction in force was
implemented with the intent of preserving the core resources of the Company while achieving
its payroll cost reduction objectives.
To address the second goal, the Company has consolidated its U.S. and U.K. engineering
resources under the leadership of David Chu, who has been appointed to the position of Vice
President of Engineering. Mr. Chu has accumulated over 20 years of software industry
experience working on products from relational database systems to business applications, in
a wide variety of technical environments. His principal expertise is managing the development
efforts of enterprise level business applications. An expert in Microsoft BackOffice
technology, Mr. Chu holds triple certifications as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer,
Solutions Developer and Trainer.
Prior to joining Altris Software in February 1997, he was Assistant Vice President of
Research and Development for Computer Associates International ("CA"). In his 10-year
career at CA, Mr. Chu played a leading role as an architect and original designer of many of
CA's currently marketed business applications.
Commenting on his promotion, Mr. Chu said, "Our plan is to accelerate our implementation of
industry best practices, procedures and frameworks throughout the Altris engineering
organization. For example, we have instituted new release planning and distribution
procedures that will shorten our maintenance release cycles to customers for the Company's
current products. For new product development, we are adopting a milestone driven
development procedure that pays much more attention to up front planning, design and
continual quality assurance. Each new product will be released only after it is evaluated using
formal test plans and procedures allowing us to actually measure and improve product
quality." Summarizing, Mr. Chu said, "I am confident that combining these changes with an
already excellent development staff can help us to provide solid, innovative new products to
customers."
Based in San Diego, California, Altris Software delivers enterprise-wide document
management software to its customers around the world.
CONTACT: At Altris:
John Low
Chief Financial Officer
619/625-3000
or
At Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates:
Lillian Armstrong/Kris Otridge
415/433-3777
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