• more... (水城百事)

by oncee, Tuesday, March 03, 2009, 09:46 @ oncee

RDM lost $1.6 million on sales of $7.1 million in the quarter ended December 31 (Q1 09). Most of the loss came from a foreign exchange hit on the forward contracts the company uses for hedging. But the stronger U.S. dollar helped the top line (nearly all of RDM sales are in U.S. dollars, but it reports in Canadian dollars), where RDM says exchange rate changes added $1.4 million compared to a year ago.

Sales were flat from a year ago, with RDM's ITMS payment processing business showing a big jump in revenue over that period, while scanner sales and custom payments solutions work both showed declines. The payment processing business remained RDM's only money-losing segment, reporting a $651,000 operating loss. Average ITMS weekly transaction volumes increased slightly to 3.3 million from 3.1 million in the previous quarter. RDM added another 1,000 end user locations for the ITMS service in the quarter, bringing the total to 15,900. The ITMS business accounted for nearly a third of all revenue in the quarter, up from an average of 23% in fiscal 2008.

Operations provided $316,000 in cash and the company spent $160,000 to repurchase shares in the quarter. RDM still has plenty of cash -- $17.3 million, which is about what it had at the beginning of the quarter and a year ago.

[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: Big drops for Arise, RIM, Dalsa, and ATS shares
February 2009

The TSX composite was only down 7% in February, but four of the companies followed here lost about a quarter of their value. It was the second consecutive month of big declines for Arise and Dalsa, which -- including the carnage on the markets yesterday -- have lost 47% and 39%, respectively, of their value so far in 2009.

For the month of February:

MKS [TSX: MKX] +14%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] +7%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] 0%
===============================
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX -2%
RDM [TSX: RC] -3%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX -7%
Open Text [TSX: OTC] -7%
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] -11%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] -11%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] -11%
ATS [TSX: ATA] -23%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] -24%
RIM [TSX: RIM] -25%
Arise [TSX: APV] -29%

Companies with core operations outside the area:

Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] +14%
===================================
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] -0%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] -0%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] -8%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] -8%
ON Semiconductor [Nasdaq: ONNN] -12%
Acorn Energy [Nasdaq: ACFN] -14%
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] -19%
Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] -34%
NCR [NYSE: NCR] -37%

[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits

Primal Fusion announced the launch of its "thought networking" platform technology at the DEMO conference in California. The company will be offering a free online service, which is currently in an private alpha testing stage.

Tech company founders Peter Sweeney (Primal Fusion), Prem Gururajan (Tangam), Stefanus Du Toit (RapidMind) and John Baker (Desire2Learn) were among those recognized in the Waterloo Region Record's "40 Under 40."

Ross Goodwin is the new business development VP at LoyaltyMatch. He is based in Santa Rosa, Calif., where he runs the Bennett Valley Group sales and marketing consultancy. LoyaltyMatch CEO Brad Ball is also affiliated with Goodwin's consulting business and the two used to work together at Hewlett-Packard. Goodwin was with H-P for more than 20 years.

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile network operator, has temporarily stopped selling the BlackBerry Bold after receiving complaints from about 30 customers that the devices were overheating while recharging. RIM is looking into the problem and has ruled out a flaw in the battery.

But it was a merry Christmas for RIM, as the number of new BlackBerry subscribers in the quarter ended February 28 were at least 20% higher than the 2.9 million it forecast. Even with the extra sales, RIM says its revenue numbers for the quarter will be near the mid-point of its forecasted range. Final results for the quarter will be announced in April.

Things weren't as rosy at Arise, which warned investors that its sales in the quarter ended December 31 will fall about $3 million below forecasts. The company will also be taking a $2.8 million asset writedown in the quarter. It is reviewing all planned expenditures and says that some projects may be put on hold or cancelled. Full results will be announced next week.

Descartes has acquired the logistics business of Montreal's Oceanwide in an all-cash deal for $10.4 million. The business employs 45 people in Montreal and Miami. Oceanwide's COO has become SVP of compliance solutions at Descartes.

Arius Software announced the launch of its DocumentAdvantage document imaging and management software for the financial services industry.

The Sioux Lookout Diabetes Program launched a new website using technology from Kitchener's MedManager.