In another belt-tightening move, PictureTel, an Andover videoconferencing firm, has sold its Starlight Networks subsidiary, to AxessPoint, a Mount Dora, Fla., distance learning company.

AxessPoint will pay PictureTel $300,000 cash by April and up to $3.5 million over the next 2 years, depending on profits. In addition, PictureTel has been granted warrants to purchase up to 2 percent of AxessPoint. PictureTel, through its subsidiary, 1414c, also retains licensing rights to Starlight's Web-based streaming media software.

"AxessPoint clearly recognizes the value of Starlight's core technology," said Bob Byrnes, president of PictureTel's 1414c. "These are powerful tools that improve productivity and decision making by accelerating the distribution and absorption of corporate knowledge. Moving forward, PictureTel is focused in its core technologies."

PictureTel will realize proceeds from the sale and jettison $7.2 million per year in operating costs. The company expects to incur a charge of approximately $3 million for the transaction related to lease payments and other obligations.

The move comes as PictureTel strives to shore up its bottom line. The company has suffered several losing quarters and seen the stock tumble in the past year. Itlost $84.5 million in 1999 on sales of $323.3 million, but it said in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it expected to be profitable in 2001.

Last month, it terminated its lease on 180,000 square feet of office space near its headquarters, saving it $4.5 million in lease expenses per year. It has also cut its workforce by 10 percent since July to save $12.5 million annually.

For its part, AxessPoint acquires software that will allow its customers -- corporations, government agencies and schools -- to create, automate and manage streaming media programs over the Internet and intranets. The company felt it would be faster, and ultimately cheaper, to purchase Statlight Networks, than to mount a development effort of its own.

"Starlight Networks will deliver value for AxessPoint both in the short and long term," said Steve Shamrock, AxessPoint's chairman and CEO. "The company's structure and core competencies are highly complementary with AxessPoint's infrastructure, our business model and our corporate goals and objectives."