For a company which claims to be more interested in growing revenues than making profits, Iona Technologies Plc is doing exceptionally well. The Dublin, Ireland-based object middleware company has reported second quarter net profits up 167.0% at $1.7m on revenue up 141.6% at $10.4m. But Iona is firmly focused on grabbing market share in the rapidly emerging middleware arena which the company estimates will grow to a total market of around $1.5bn by the year 2000. In the short term, good profit margins are an added bonus. Funds from its initial public offering of 19 million shares in February this year are being used to launch an ever increasing product range of CORBA-based software integration technologies based around their core product, Orbix which was first released in July 1993. Iona chose the Nasdaq exchange as its home without any hesitation. Right from the start the Irish company had aspirations of playing alongside the Microsofts and Oracle Corps of the US. The company now has a well established US head office in Boston and US sales continue to thrive. But the markets clearly had aspirations for the company beyond even its own grandiose schemes and the shares dipped $2.75 to $22.88, though this is still a dollar above the opening price in February.
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