Documentum Inc president and CEO Jeffrey Miller told analysts Thursday night that there was no rational reason why a company such as ours is valued so inappropriately by the market. Shares in the Pleasanton, California-based document management company have been falling steadily over the past few weeks or so from over $50 at the start of the year to a low of $23.56, on rumors that the company might tell analysts to lower their fiscal 1999 forecasts. That didn’t happen. Instead, Miller told analysts that the company was on track to transform itself from a pure document management company into a web-based knowledge chain management outfit, a far larger opportunity, he said. Documentum plans to launch its new web application server, codenamed Piper, in late March or early April, which will work in conjunction with its current document management products, but also provide the basis for its new enterprise applications business. Beta versions of Piper have already shipped, and Documentum has sold the first of its KCM applications, extending its DocSolutions product into a document control management system. This was shipped to five customers during the just completed fourth quarter, contributing $500,000 in revenues. The technology is based on products Documentum acquired last year from Relevance Technologies Inc (CI No 3,454). Documentum reported its 20th consecutive quarter of sequential growth. Revenues were $36.4m for the quarter (54% up from last year) and $123.8m for the year (up 64% from the previous year). Net income for the quarter was $4.2m, up 51% over the same quarter last year. Including $36.8m in acquisition-related charges, net loss for the year was $23.5m, compared with a $7.3m profit last year. Without the charges, income for the full year was up 75% from last year’s figure to $12.9m. Services business accounted for 35% of revenues during the year. Results were posted after the market closed Thursday, but Documentum shares ended the day up $2.37 to $26.25, a rise of nearly 10% against a weak market.
