Commerce One Inc. Thursday announced financial results for the third fiscal
quarter, coming in several million under revenues reported by chief rival
Ariba Inc., which claimed it broke even a day earlier.
Even still, Commerce One’s revenues for the current quarter totaled $112.7
million as compared with $10.4 million for the corresponding quarter in 1999
and $62.7 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2000.
This represents a one-year increase of 987 percent, soundly trouncing
Ariba’s 687 percent revenue increase from the previous year.
However, Commerce One’s net loss for the quarter was $14.7 million, or 9
cents per share, as compared to $10.3 million, or 7 cents per share, for the
corresponding quarter in 1999.
Including all charges, the net loss for the current quarter was $60.6
million, or 37 cents per share, as compared with a net loss of $10.4
million, or 7 cents per share, for the corresponding quarter ended September
30, 1999.
Mark Hoffman, chairman and chief executive officer of Commerce One,
attributed his firm’s success to its acquisition of AppNet in June and newly-formed alliances with Microsoft, a
relationship in which Commerce One developed and delivered e-marketplace
infrastructure technologies
optimized for the Microsoft.NET Platform.
“We continue to make good progress on our path to profitability,” said
Hoffman. “In July 2000, we moved our profitability target date from the
fourth quarter of 2001, to the third quarter of 2001. Based upon my
assessment of our performance, today I am moving our profitability target
date up to the second quarter of 2001.”
The e-commerce software maker snatched up 96 new clients, which was 18 less
than what Ariba recorded.
Still, while Commerce One beat Wall Street’s forecast for a third-quarter
loss of 12 cents per share, this a tad behind Ariba’s push to profit.
IdeaAdvisor.com analyst Seth Martin had said earlier this week that Commerce
One must show superior sequential revenue growth and
that it would have to report it least $100 million in revenues for investors
to get excited enough for the stock to rise. The outfit trumped that number,
but the stock only rose 7.69 percent to 63.88 percent by the market’s close.
Ariba fared much better by Thursday’s close , rising
$2.69 to $130.48, recovering from a morning sell-off that had shaved $7 off
its share price.
Morningstar.com advisor Joe Beaulieu said Ariba’s stock price is too high
right now and could see some drop-offs in the future. Beaulieu also said
Ariba and Commerce One could be neck-and-neck by this time next quarter in
terms of profitability.
