Netegrity should be profitable this year because of the Netscape non-exclusive reseller agreement. That's the best news the company is currently representing. Prior to last week, profitability was never mentioned.
However, behind that snippet of data is volumes. For example, if you look at SEC filings starting around December '97, you will see that a $1.5 billion private fund, (Dawson-Samberg) invested $2.5 million. The way they invested it was with an initial infusion of capital and a promise for more, IF Siteminder could achieve "market acceptance."
By mid '98 Siteminder had won the top award from Internet World's testing lab and the company had made several key sales. As the year closed out they had sales and distribution agreements with a few companies, including Banyan Software.
The company says that for the next 90 days or so everything will look about the same, sales wise. This is because many sales that would have closed through Netegrity, will now close through Netscape.
But, starting in Q2 the story will really start to change.
AOL is fully committed to capitalizing on the e-commerce opportunities that are pouring in from corporations. To do that they need the Netscape tools. Netscape, with their large worldwide sales force, plans to take Siteminder into all of their markets, including Europe and Asia. This is something the 50 or so staff at Netegrity would be years away from, if they had to go it alone. And Netscape is also well entrenched in the Federal government market. The opportunity to sell Siteminder almost limitless, now. And the large sales force and customer base is in place.
Oh, by the way, I am a shareholder that has been following Netegrity for 1 and a half years. Management, under Barry Bycoff fine leadership, has been truthful and I have observed them to do with they say .... even about Netscape.
Take care.
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