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Technology Stocks : Peritus Software Services (PTUS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TEDennis who wrote (1417)	7/5/1998 7:41:00 PM
From: Big Dog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1960

Thanks Ted! I was beginning to hear an echo...echo...echo. Here is another SEEC-related article which has application to PTUS. Some analysts are turning their sights to post-Y2K: January 5, 1998 SEECing new profit Year 2000 ace must focus on other services to grow Karen Kovatch SHADYSIDE -- The Year 2000 software market has been good to SEEC Inc. Since its initial public offer a year ago, the company has focused almost exclusively on carving a niche for itself in the lucrative business. It's a big target. Emerald Research of Lancaster, Pa., estimates annual spending on corrections to the dreaded software bug at $56 billion. So far, SEEC has found a ready supply of companies fearful that their computer software won't recognize the year 2000, instead reading dates as 1900. During the fourth quarter of 1997, SEEC saw its revenue rise 150 percent to a record $822,000. It generated sales of just $322,000 during the same period a year earlier. Ravi Koka, SEEC's president and CEO, directly attributes the year-end results to increased demand for its Year 2000 software products from major corporations scrambling to make their computer systems and software Year 2000 compliant. If SEEC hopes to continue on this path, though, it will have to broaden its offerings, given that the Year 2000 will eventually arrive, and eventually pass. While software bugs won't be repaired immediately, experts say SEEC needs to broaden its offerings now, not when business runs out. "Year 2000 conversions definitely will not all be fixed by the year 2000," said Heidi Hooper, Year 2000 program manager for the Information Technology Association of America, an Arlington, Va.-based trade association that represents information technology companies. "We're hoping the mission critical systems will be done by then, but conversions will be going beyond the year 2000, probably at least three or four years." Many analysts predict the market will begin to shrink over the next two years, though. Eventually, it will dry up. "Their window of opportunity on the Year 2000 is really in 1998 and early 1999," said Jim Sober, a research analyst with Emerald Research who is based Downtown. "So they really need to be focusing on their next generation of tools to address the client/server market." The company is slowly beginning to do this. SEEC may be best known for Year 2000 software, but this isn't its only product line. SEEC was founded in 1988 as a provider of software and services that enhance the value of so-called legacy applications, old, usually mainframe-based, computer applications written decades ago. SEEC also designs programs that allow companies to maintain and redevelop programs written in COBOL and other early programming languages so that they can be moved from mainframe computers to networked systems of personal computers or minicomputer servers. Emerald's Mr. Sober believes that SEEC needs to expand this line now so that it can leverage the relationships it is creating with Year 2000 clients in order to sell them other services. "They have the potential to establish a market for these products by going to these same customers to sell very similar tools that allow them to manage their legacy systems after they convert them," he said. Mastech Corp., an Oakdale firm that also provides Year 2000 services, has taken this approach and met with considerable success. Mastech primarily provides information technology professionals to companies on an outsource basis. But it also offers a line of Year 2000 products, which it sells to many of the same clients who are using its outsourced personnel. "Mastech has a better long-term sustainable model because they're more than Year 2000," said Monish Bahl, a research analyst with Parker/Hunter Inc., a Downtown investment firm. Mr. Bahl thinks SEEC has what it takes to be more than a Year 2000 provider as well. He sees applications for its Year 2000 products in the European currency conversion market. "If you can convert Year 2000 coding, you can convert currency coding," Mr. Bahl said. "So I think that's the next big short-term market for them."