The deal, for an undisclosed sum, will help AEP expand its public sector customer base, particularly in the US, where V-One enjoys relationships with the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Defense and Treasury.
Our total customer base with the acquisition is about 2,000 customers around the world, an AEP spokesperson said. The majority of V-One’s customers are large public sector organizations.
AEP was itself formed by the merger of SSL VPN rivals Netilla Networks and AEP Systems last December. At that time, the merged company said it had 1,200 customers.
AEP beat out Proginet in the bidding for V-One, which has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for several months. Proginet had provided V-One with debtor-in-possession financing in March.
V-One is a penny stock, literally, listed over-the-counter in New York and priced at $0.01 per share yesterday. Its market capitalization was about $220,000 yesterday as the markets closed.
According to the last available sales numbers for V-One, its business was on the slide all last year. For the nine months to September 30, 2004, revenue dropped 42% to $1.28m. Its last-reported quarter saw revenue of $591,000.
