Applied Microsystems Corp is once again issuing a profit warning for its forthcoming quarter, blaming its transition over to a new sales strategy that focuses only on large customers. The Redmond, Washington-based embedded systems supplier now expects revenue for its second quarter ending June 30 to be between $7.2m and $7.4m, compared to $9.2m in the second quarter of 1998. It says the loss per share will be between $0.28 and $0.33, compared to a profit of $0.01 per share last year.
In April, Applied was forced to warn that it would not make its first quarter expectations after a revenue slide, attributed to poor sales in Japan and Europe. It later announced revenue of $8.5m for its first quarter, compared to $8.3m the previous year, and a net loss of $934,000 or $0.14 per share, compared to a loss in Q1 1998 of $559,000 or $0.08 per share. Japanese sales continued to be weak in Q2.
Applied says it is in the process of changing its sales model to concentrate on large deals to large companies, offering a combination of hardware, software tools and consulting services. It claims there are positive signs, however, with good sales of its CodeTest products during the quarter, and a good reception for its CodeOptix debugging tools for the PowerPC processor, which includes the LiveCode interactive tracing system for IBM Corp’s PowerPC 405GP and the PowerPC 403 chipsets. Applied’s CEO Stephen Verleye claimed that interest in LiveCode is higher than we have seen for any other product launch in our history. LiveCode, along with several other new products, will begin shipping in the third quarter, the company said.
