Interactive graphics workstation specialist Intergraph still has some way to go to full health, judging by its fourth quarter and year figures. Headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, where Werner Von Braun and other German V2 rocket scientists were transferred after World War II to start the US rocket program, and which is still a high-tech area to this day, the 26-year old former Unix- only graphics workstation vendor is scrambling to complete its turnaround into an Intel/Windows NT powerhouse. CEO Jim Meadlock has been spearheading a shift from Intergraph’s old engineering and construction market to new turf such as Web servers, and even toeholds in Silicon Graphics territory of sexy CGI (computer generated imagery). The move, accompanied by restructurings and selling off of quite a few product lines, was hailed as completed earlier this year, but the figures stubbornly refuse to agree. Though an Intergraph TDZ-410 Wintel box can offer a 3D modeler or animation specialist performance comparable to a Unix workstation for 45% of the price, Intergraph is still plainly not selling enough of them. For fiscal 1996 its overall revenue slipped from $1.097bn to $1.095bn (unaudited), but net losses for the year climbed from $45.3m to $69.1m. The loss figure is affected by a special charge of $10.5m for write-down of assets, and also includes $11.2m gain for selling of investments in affiliated companies. In the fourth quarter Intergraph lost $33.6m, compared to a $7.1m net profit for the same period in 1995, though this quarter does include the aforementioned $10.5m hit. In revenue terms there was a slight rise, from $202.2m to $210.9m. In the last full four financial years Intergraph has now lost an accumulated $301m. Its share price has slipped to $8 from its year high of $20, falling 20% in trading on Friday alone, giving it the unenviable quality of being a billion dollar company with a market capitalisation of not much more than a third of revenues, $381m.
