CRM Earnings: A Mixed Bag

The CRM bellwethers met with stormy times, while smaller players hit record highs for the quarter ended March 31, 2003. While CRM giant Siebel Systems posted dismal first quarter earnings, it isn't alone in its woes. PeopleSoft announced this week plans to lay off 200 of its more than 8,000 employees after a less-than-stellar quarter. The company posted a first-quarter profit of $38 million, compared with $44.5 million a year earlier, blaming much of its financial troubles on economic uncertainty due to the recent war with Iraq and the SARS outbreak. PeopleSoft said revenue fell nearly 5 percent to $460 million from $483.27 million in the first quarter of 2002, and software license sales fell to $81 million from $133 million. Meanwhile, mid-market CRM provider Pivotal Corp. also saw revenue fall. For its third quarter of fiscal 2003, ended March 31, the company posted revenue of $13.1 million, down from $17.7 million for the third quarter of 2002. Net loss was $4.4 million, compared with a loss of $3.4 million in the previous third quarter. "The quarter was strong in terms of taking care of existing customers; services, maintenance, that all went very well," says Bo Manning, Pivotal's president and CEO. Revenues from services and maintenance were $9.6 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2003, compared to $9.1 million in the prior quarter. Broken Records Someone must be picking up the slack from the CRM heavyweights, and it appears that the pie is being divided among many smaller players. Inquisite, a division of Catapult Systems Corp., announced its most profitable quarter to date for its first quarter ending March 31. The company reported an almost 90 percent increase in sales over the same period in 2002. Catapult does not disclose specific revenue figures for the division, which provides Web survey technology and business intelligence services. Unica Corp. , a provider of enterprise marketing management solutions, topped the previous quarter's financial milestones when it announced earnings for its second fiscal quarter of 2003, ended March 31. Unica posted revenue that was up 45 percent over the same period a year ago. Interactive Intelligence, developers of software for IP telephony, contact center automation, reported record revenue and the company's first quarterly profit since it went public in 1999. Revenue for the quarter ended March 31, 2003, was $14 million up from $12 million for the same quarter of 2002. Net income was $300,000, up from a net loss of $2.2 million for the first quarter of last year. Revenue on the Rise Dendrite International, which provides CRM solutions to pharmaceutical companies, reported strong first quarter results. Revenue of $59.7 million was up 4 percent from $57.4 million in the first quarter of 2002. Net income for the first quarter of 2003 was $4.3 million, up 22 percent from $3.5 million or 9 cents per diluted share in the same period of 2002. Hyperion, a provider of business performance management solutions, said its total third fiscal quarter revenue increased 6 percent to $126.6 million, compared to $120 million for the same quarter a year ago. The company reported net income for the quarter of $8.3 million, compared to net income of $3.1 million, for the third quarter of fiscal 2002. Even Keel infoUSA, provider of sales and marketing support products, posted sales for its first quarter of 2003, ended March 31, of $76.1 million, relatively flat from the $76.7 million recorded for the same quarter of 2002. Net income was $6.8 million, compared to $4.8 million, for the corresponding period a year ago.