Alliant finished its financial year in December with a loss of $34.4m, but says that financial woes will be over by the end of the second quarter, by which time it expects to be breaking even. Brain attributes the downturn in fortunes to a delay before the new low-end FX/800 could be rolled out, but at least some was also due to the problems the company had last year in getting its software compilers to work properly on the FX/2800. Brain says revenues of $18m per quarter are needed to reach the break even point. With, according to Brain, some $5m income now guaranteed each quarter from customer support services on its nearly 600-strong installed base, Alliant is banking on drumming up at least $13m of new business each quarter to make that mark. Brain added that the only debt the company now has is debenture, which he says is being paid off at a manageable rate of just over $2m a year. Commenting on last week’s resignation of Ronald Gruner, co-founder of Alliant in 1982, now replaced as chief executive by president Craig Mundie, the other founder, Brain says the move had been planned for some time, while Mundie was getting up to speed on executive functions. There was just no space for the both of them, he added.
