Redwood Shores, CA September 26, 2001 Saba Software, a provider of human capital development and management (HCDM) solutions, beat analysts' estimates this week by reporting a smaller-than-expected loss for its first quarter ended August 31, 2001.
At the same time, the company reported that its president and COO had departed.
For the quarter, Saba, which provides online learning and staff performance management software, posted $14.5 million in total revenue, an increase of 44 percent over the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, when the company reported $10.0 million in revenue.
Saba lost $0.12 per share in the first quarter of fiscal 2002, $0.02 better than the First Call consensus of a loss of $0.14 per share, excluding non-cash stock compensation costs, amortization of purchased intangible assets and the write-off of in-process research and development. Loss per share for the same period of the previous fiscal year was $0.34.
Saba ended its first quarter with $12.7 million in deferred revenue and $30.8 million in cash. Net cash used in operations was $3.6 million during the quarter. For its fiscal year 2001, which ended in May, the company reported sales of $53.1 million, an increase of 195.0 percent over the previous year.
The company also announced this week the departure of Sebastian Grady, formerly Saba's president and COO. Saba is currently searching for candidates to fill the vacant positions, and in the interim Bobby Yazdani, Saba's founder and CEO, will resume active operational control of the company.
Saba added 16 new enterprise and ASP customers during the past quarter, reaching a total of 129 enterprise and 39 ASP customers. New customers included Principal Financial Group, Bayer Diagnostics, Novartis, Aventis Pharma, Minneapolis School District, UC Irvine, Banco Populare di Milano and Banca di Sondrio.
In its first entry into the Japanese market, Saba added Global Knowledge Network Japan as an enterprise customer. Enterprise customers who expanded their relationship with Saba included Allos, General Motors and Best Buy.
A total of 17 customers went live in the quarter, bringing the total live enterprise and ASP customer count to 114. New live enterprise customers included ABN AMRO, General Motors, Global Knowledge Network Australia, EMC, Xilinx and General Electric Plastics.
"While enterprise software sales weakened during our first quarter, we are making solid progress towards profitability," said Yazdani. He said the company would continue its focus on investing in customer satisfaction and product development.
The company's CFO, Terry Carlitz, said that Saba would "continue to be proactive in managing costs during this period of reduced visibility and uncertain market conditions. We are committed to profitability in May 2002, and have sufficient cash in our current plan to reach this milestone."
Saba competes with such companies as click2learn, Global Knowledge, PROVANT and SkillSoft.
