By Siobhan Kennedy
Speedware Corp Friday announced plans to spin off its business intelligence tools unit into a wholly-owned subsidiary called Visionyze Corp. The Canadian OLAP database and application software vendor said it has enlisted the services of FAC Equities, of Burlingame, California to help raise the $15m it requires to launch the company. Bob Hoover, VP of strategic planning and marketing for Speedware told ComputerWire that Visionyze was being set up to exclusively focus on the analytical applications market, a market which he says is about to experience a big boom. We feel the opportunity for this marketplace requires significant resources, which Speedware doesn’t have, he said. At the moment most companies are addressing the market by offering OLAP tools, but we specialize in complete solutions, and there’s no-one else out there doing that. Speedware currently sells a customized application for the telecoms market and last month it launched its customer service analyzer application. Once it is up and running, Hoover said Visionyze will focus on developing customized OLAP software for the utilities sector, and plans for insurance and healthcare modules are also in the pipeline. As part of the restructuring, Speedware is also seeking a partner to use its underlying business intelligence tools for things other than custom-designed applications. The proposed relationship would offer the partner an exclusive license to market, sell and support Speedware’s business intelligence technology products, Media and Esperant, in the horizontal marketplace. The new partner is expected to be announced in January. Hoover said he expects Visionyze to be fully operational by the end of the first calender quarter next year, around March or April. It will be 100% owned by Speedware at first but the company plans to issue shares and stock options in the start-up very soon after. Visionyze will operate as a completely separate entity, with its own profit and loss responsibility, Hoover said, We would expect the company to go public some time within the next two years or so. Speedware’s current CEO, Bill Thomson, who was brought in to return the company to profitability, will also serve as CEO for Visionyze. But within 12 months, he will be replaced at Speedware by a new president but will remain as CEO for Visionyze. Bob Hoover will become executive VP at the start-up. Hoover added that around 60 of Speedware’s current employees, namely from sales and marketing and R&D, will switch to the new company, leaving approximately 140 staff behind. Those remaining form part of Speedware’s existing application development tools division. We’re leaving behind a profitable business, Hoover said, there are several hundred customers using Speedware’s development tools out there. But Speedware’s recent financial history suggests otherwise. Although it managed to eke out profits of $51,000 for its fourth quarter, the company had registered three consecutive net losses in the previous quarters and total net losses for the year to September 30 were $3.5m. Revenues also fell 13.4% to $16.2m. It remains to be seen how Speedware, stripped of its potentially very profitable OLAP business, will cope.
