Marimba Inc CEO Kim Polese hit back at Novadigm Inc yesterday over its reaction to the patent lawsuit Marimba filed against the company earlier this week (CI No 3,716). She accused Novadigm’s CEO, Albion Fitzgerald, of confusing the issues by implying that Marimba’s suit was connected to the long running patent suit Novadigm has out against Marimba. These are two separate lawsuits insisted Polese, and two separate technologies. She said that a lot of research had been carried out by Marimba to establish that infringements of its patent had taken place.
Marimba, however, refused to go into the details about the technical aspects of the case, citing legal restrictions. To outsiders, Marimba’s patent, entitled Method for the Distribution of Code and Data Updates sounds somewhat similar to Novadigm’s content delivery and differencing process patent, granted in 1997, but in use since 1994 as part of its EDM Enterprise Desktop Manager product line. Marimba filed its patent in 1996. Both companies are claiming prior art, meaning that they have documentary evidence of earlier use of the technology behind their respective patents before they were granted.
Marimba’s Polese, however, does point out that Novadigm did not use any of its technology in an internet-based product, until 1997, when it began following Marimba’s lead into the new market. Novadigm’s internet line, Radia, was launched in that year. She denies Novadigm’s contention that Marimba was still a push company at that time, rather than an enterprise software house. We entered the market in late 1996 with a robust and complete application distribution and management product, based on integrated, enterprise foundations she told ComputerWire.
Polese says she was pleased with Marimba’s first public quarter, posted at the end of last month, which saw the company post a net loss of $1.5m on revenue up 87.1% from the previous year at $6.9m (CI No 3,712). Revenue from software licensing, up 56% to $4.9m, didn’t show six major contracts for subscription, or pay as you go customers, she said. That revenue will be posted incrementally as it is billed. The new subscription charging model should be popular with pure-play internet companies and application service providers, she said. Service revenue should remain at around one third of the total.
But investors haven’t been sharing the optimism. After soaring 204% from the $20 asking price on their first day of trading to $60.75, the shares reached a high above $74 shortly afterwards, but then began a steady decline to reach a low of $22. The stock closed at just under $24 Wednesday night.
