Geoworks Inc, Alameda, California developer of cut-down operating systems for devices such as smart phones, has reported a second- quarter net loss of $2.7m – or $0.17 per share – when First Call was looking for a wider loss of $0.23. Revenue for the quarter improved 22% to $3.4m, while the loss equaled the loss a year ago. Six month net loss was $8.5m on revenue down 4.2% at $5.3m, up from a loss of $5.2m last year. The company is still holding to its goal of breaking even in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal year, and showing a profit shortly thereafter. During the quarter, Geoworks expanded its development agreement with Nokia Oy, with the two companies working on new software, operating systems and mobile devices (CI No 3,210). The two had previously worked on the development of the Nokia 9000 Communicator, which integrates Geoworks’ GEOS operating system. The 9000 was introduced in the US during Q2, and a Toshiba device based on GEOS was launched in Japan as well, which should help boost revenues with royalty payments. Geoworks recently announced that it will be licensing Sun Microsystems Inc’s Personal Java technology to create a version of its mobile OS that supports Java, but both the OS and products based on it are too far out to comment on, the company says.
