DataMirror Pays Price For Failed Investment

DataMirror Corp., a supplier of enterprise application integration and system-availability software, on Tuesday reported strong sales in its third quarter, but write-offs for its investment in another software vendor put the company in the red.

For the quarter ended Oct. 31, DataMirror reported sales of $15.7 million, up 9.7% from the same period last year. License revenue, which many software vendors have seen decline during the slowdown in IT spending, was up nearly 16% year-over-year to $8.4 million. Maintenance-related revenue also increased while services revenue declined slightly. "Another solid quarter of revenue growth and cost-control," says CEO Nigel Stokes.

But DataMirror reported a net loss of $4.3 million, 38 cents per share, for the quarter because of a write-down of nearly $4.6 million for the company's investment in PointBase Inc., a developer of Java-based mobile database software. Without that and other one-time charges, DataMirror's net income was $1.6 million.

For the fourth quarter, DataMirror expects revenue to be in the range of $15.8 million to $16.3 million, while net income is expected to be in the range of 10 cents to 14 cents per share.