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News Alert from Charlotte Business Journal via Quote.com
Topic: (NASDAQ:ALYD) Alydaar Software Corp. ,
Quote.com News Item #5246549
Headline: Growing beyond 2000
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While Charlotte high-tech companies are booming with Year 2000
business, several are preparing for the next century in another way:
Their own growth.
Most visibly, Alydaar Software Corp., which has grown to 320
employees solely on Year 2000 business, is now planning on the
publicly traded company's next step.
By 2000, Alydaar President Bob Gruder says he expects Alydaar to
have millions in cash on hand and 20 sales offices around the
country. To prepare for that day, he expects to make several
regional acquisitions this year to help grow the company's expertise
in areas outside Year 2000 solutions.
"As a public company, we have to keep this thing going," Gruder
says. "We've already targeted a handful of companies (to acquire)."
Alydaar, which is traded on Nasdaq, is now turning a profit after
losing money last year on $11 million in sales.
But Gruder is also intent on remaining a major player in Year
2000. He plans to spend more than $1 million on an aggressive
marketing campaign that will include direct mail, telemarketing and
possibly commercials on cable networks CNBC and CNN.
"The only thing we lack is visibility, and we're gaining that,"
Gruder says.
The state doesn't track Year 2000 jobs specifically, but the
Employment Security Commission expects "systems analyst" to be the
fastest-growing occupation in the Charlotte region between 1992 and
2000, up 74% to 1,756 jobs in the eight-year span.
Most local technology consulting companies say that at least 20%
of their business is geared to fixing the Year 2000 problem, which is
expected to cause record-keeping computers globally to malfunction
when the century turns. Because programs developed in this century
used only two digits to indicate the year, computers may interpret
the year 2000 as 1900.
At ATS Technology Systems, Vice President Chris Kronzer says the
5-year-old company has almost doubled in size over the last year to
120 employees. "A good part of that is because of Year 2000,"
Kronzer says.
This, despite the fact that ATS has not done any marketing of its
Year 2000 consulting services. "We're sort of doing the opposite of
what Alydaar is doing (in marketing), but the business is really
coming to us," Kronzer says.
And he expects the new hires that business has generated to
translate to sales past 2000. ATS is already planning to re-train
those workers with plans for the firm to move into systems
re-engineering.
The market is so promising that London-based software company
Boxware Inc., with more than 50,000 employees worldwide, chose
Charlotte for its first U.S. office. That office opened with seven
employees in January and those numbers will double by summer,
according to Robert Mayer, technical support manager. Mayer says 50%
of Boxware's business is related to Year 2000 solutions. Most of its
business is outside the Charlotte area.
"It's just now getting to the point where when you say Year 2000,
people know what you're talking about," Mayer says. "We're doing
direct mail, but many companies are coming to us now looking for
help."
Other local high-tech firms have also added staff to deal with
Year 2000, including Metasys Inc., Computer Professionals Inc.,
Piedmont Technology Group Inc. and Osprey Systems Inc.
Fast-growing Osprey has gone from revenue of $2 million in 1993 to
$20 million last year, President David Rizzo says. Osprey added 30
employees last year and expects to have another 50 on board later
this year to handle an increasing amount of Year 2000 work.
There's no question the work is out there. Duke Energy Corp. is a
good example of how many of the region's larger companies are
handling the problem. Spokesman Randy Wheeless says Duke has 40
employees on the case in-house, but is also using several outside
consultants.
Charlotte-based cargo shipper Sea-Land Service Inc. is gathering
an in-house team to assess all of its applications and will outsource
the actual coding, says spokesman Gary Wallenhaupt.
The area's large financial institutions - NationsBank, First Union
and Wachovia - have already devoted millions of dollars and staff to
the problem. With a staff of 30 and task force of 50 devoted to Year
2000, First Union expects to spend $42 million on solutions, while
Wachovia will fork over $40 million using a team of 11 full-time
staff members, 150 contract programmers and 50 consultants.
NationsBank, which will not disclose how much it is spending, has
200 employees on the case.
"There's enough business to go around for all of these companies,"
says Raleigh's Betsy Justus, president of the N.C. Electronics and
Information Technologies Association. "When you think about the fact
that all publicly traded companies have to be Year 2000 compliant,
and the fact that we have so many financial institutions here, it
doesn't have an option to be anything other than big business."
Justus says North Carolina companies really didn't begin to take
Year 2000 seriously until 1996. Since then, "as more and more
evidence has emerged that significant programming changes will be
needed, we've seen many small companies emerge that specialize in
solving the problem."
For example, Peter Mihaltian, executive vice president and senior
partner at Parks + Co., an upstart technology consulting firm in
Charlotte, is focusing on small- to medium-sized banks. He says they
have shown the greatest initiative in seeking Year 2000 help in
recent months because many are just now making a major commitment to
solving the problem.
Kronzer says ATS has purposely tried to hold Year 2000 to no more
than 30% of its business. "Most of us are making this a complement
to our business, not the core," Krozner says. "But there's so much
work out there that that's hard to do. It's scary how much work
there is."
Year 2000 hiring woes
Help wanted: One recent national estimate said there were as many
as 600,000 job vacancies for programmers in the United States.
Jobs open: Experienced programmers, system designers and analysts
and project managers. Executives say they haven't even considered
calling on nearby University of North Carolina at Charlotte for help
because they need experience.
Experience sought: Intermediate to senior-level types. Hires are
often found as a result of bank mergers. People with Big 6
accounting firm experience particularly sought.
Recruiting often done by offering systems analysts ability to
remain in one place rather than traveling from project to project. |
