Tandem Computers Inc has signed up as one of the first resellers for Seer Technologies Inc’s new component-based LightSpeed financial application modules (CI No 3,212). LightSpeed modules are libraries of application components aimed at five vertical markets: financial services, insurance, telecommunications, transportation and energy. The deal will initially apply to Europe, with the US and Asia Pacific expected to follow shortly. Seer is currently talking to other vendors and is also looking for distribution agreements for its Net Essentials middleware product. Net Essentials is itself currently being turned into a standalone module – it’s in a beta test version now and is expected to ship in September or October. Seer chief executive officer Thomas Wilson is due to meet Hewlett-Packard Co next week to drum up interest in the product. According to Wilson, the main difference between Net Essentials and other middleware products is its support for OS/2 and the AS/400 – he says Net Essentials should be treated as a middleware layer which will quite happily work ‘above’ the likes of IBM Corp’s MQSeries, enabling the integration of disparate platforms. Seer’s net profit for the third quarter of 1997 was $89,000, or one cent per share, compared with a loss of $5.2m a year ago. Wilson says the problems the company had were all to do with management and nothing to do with products. Wilson expects to be able to announce a profit for its fourth quarter.
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