STOCK WATCH

SSA ISSUES PROFIT WARNING

System Software Associates (SSA) has issued a profit warning and is blaming lower than expected software licence revenue during its second financial quarter for wider losses than analysts had expected.

STERLING SOFTWARE

Application software and services vendor Sterling Software announced its 42nd consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Sterling reported a profit of $35.2 million for the second quarter ended 31 March. Revenue for the quarter grew 21 per cent from $192.4 million, before the inclusion of the results of Synon, which it acquired in July last year.

PSION

Psion's stock took another tumble at the end of last week as David Levin, chief executive of the company, repeated a warning that the first half of 1999 would be weak. Levin said trading for the first half of the year would be slower as customers waited until later in the year to purchase products.

IBM

IBM's shares received an increase last week after the vendor gave an optimistic forecast about growth due to the huge expansion of the internet.

Lou Gerstner, chairman and chief executive of IBM, said the vendor was the main beneficiary of soaring internet growth and was on target to a see a double-digit rise in its earnings. IBM's stock leaped $20, or almost 9 per cent.

BANYAN

Banyan has reported a net income of $457,000, compared with a net income of $377,00 for the quarter ended 31 March. Revenue stood at $19 million, an increase of 7.2 per cent over $17.8 million for the same period last year.

LYNX

Lynx Group reported a 19 per cent increase in pre-tax profit of £6.57 million for the six months ended 31 March and turnover of £103.84 million. Helped by growing demand for financial and ERP systems, its software and systems unit created 58 per cent of the group's operating profit on 38 per cent of its turnover. Its distribution arm Sphinx CST generated 66 per cent of the services group's turnover.