Onyx Gives Upside Surprise

Onyx Software Corp. customers can breath a slight sigh of relief that the CRM vendor's long-term viability looks a bit better as the company said it expects to post better-than expected financial results for its second quarter. The news is a sign of encouragement for the Bellevue, WA- based company, as a slew of second quarter profit warnings heavily linger throughout the CRM industry. "Most of the CRM vendor comments seem to be along the lines of bad to worse from the first quarter to the second quarter. That Onyx is showing its strength is great. It was a positive surprise," said Jonathan Geurkink, a software analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, based in Seattle. Onyx expects to report approximately $18 million in revenue for its June quarter compared with $14.6 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2002. This is better than the $16 million Wall Street analysts were expected the company to post for the quarter but down considerably from the $28.9 million the company reported for the second quarter of 2001. According to Thomson Financial/First Call consensus estimates, Onyx was expected to lose three cents per share for quarter, however Onyx executives said the company will break even for the three-month period on a pro form basis. The company lost seven cents a share in its first quarter and 20 cents per share for the second quarter of 2001. "We have been seeing greater sales activity related to opportunities of significant size," said Brent Frei, chief executive of Onyx, in a statement. "Through improved sales execution, several of these opportunities became customer wins in the second quarter." In early June, the company shipped Onyx Enterprise 4.0, specifically designed to run on a Web services-enabled platform. The release also added support for the Oracle database. "I don't know how Onyx Enterprise 4.0 has done in terms of deals or sales during the quarter, but it instills in the minds of customers that the company is adding new features and continuing to build and show it is committed to this market," Geurkink said. The company expects to officially release final second quarter results and host a conference call Tuesday, July 23.