Thursday, May 06, 2004

Ross riding high

They say a rising tide lifts all boats. So, its no surprise that another ERP vendor is enjoying strong financial returns in the rising market for enterprise systems. Ross Software announced this week a 20% increase in quarterly revenue, to $13.7 million, including an outstanding 56% increase in software license revenue. That latter number is generally considered most indicative of overall health of the business because it pulls along maintenance and services revenues in future periods.

In a press release, CEO J. Patrick Tinley said, "Contributing to this quarter’s software license results were particularly strong increases in new customer licenses of the iRenaissance Suite of enterprise applications in North America as well as continued customer purchases of Ross' Internet Application Framework (IAF) which provides browser capabilities that increase user productivity. We are also very pleased with the revenue growth of our Supply Chain Management products. Our continued focus on the process industries including life sciences, food and beverage, chemicals, metals, and natural products has continued to generate our revenue growth."

Tinley said also that there has been an increase in demand from the food industry, due to concerns related to food safety.

This will probably be the last full quarterly report for Ross as an independent company. The firm is in the midst of being acquired by CDC Software, a unit of Chinadotcom.

Update, May 14: Ross CEO Tinley now says that the Chinadotcom acquisition of Ross is being delayed by a "routine" SEC review of Chinadotcom's business. As a result, the two firms have now extended the close date for the deal to September 1.

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