Bea Systems Inc said its sales for the third quarter were affected by customers delaying the deployment of large system projects, due to the worsening economic environment. According to Bea CEO Bill Coleman, the company saw several transactions we would normally have expected to have closed during the quarter delayed. But, he said, it’s too early to gage the impact of global economic forces. Despite the warning signs, Bea saw strong revenues of $80.9m, up 81% from the $44.8m posted in the same period last year. Bea posted a loss of $6.2m after charges related to its acquisition of WebLogic Inc, which closed on September 21. Without the charges, it would have shown a $7.9m profit. During the quarter, BEA says it hired more sales people, taking its headcount above 1,200 people. It says there was continued interest in its M3 object transaction software, for which it now has over 100 deployment licenses. M3 depends to some extent on services, and Bea said its services group, acquired as the Leader Group Inc last May, also had a strong quarter. WebLogic, now with its management team in place and re-named the WebExpress division, could counteract the negative impact of slowing large systems sales by taking Bea into new lower-end, high volume markets. The company says it expects to finish the integration of WebLogic’s Java web application server with Tuxedo by the end of this quarter, and the integration with M3 by the summer of fall of next year.
