Endeavour faces financial uncertainty

Hybrid reseller Endeavour Technologies' future appeared cloudy last week, amid rumours of mounting financial difficulties and soured relationships with suppliers.

On 18 September the voice recognition specialist's shares were suspended from trading on London's Ofex exchange at 135p.

A representative at Ofex said Endeavour had made the request for the suspension while it 'sorted out its financial situation'.

Endeavour's case was further muddied when credit rating agency Graydon recommended no credit be offered to the reseller, as it was a 'financial embarrassment'.

Until April this year, Addlestone-based Endeavour was the sole UK retail distributor of Dragon Systems' voice recognition products. According to sources, Endeavour's contract was terminated after it defaulted on licence payments to Dragon in the fourth quarter of 1997.

One source said: 'Endeavour owed Dragon an awful lot of money. It said it was manufacturing the product, but that only consisted of putting it in a box and wrapping it up. When it started up, its technical knowledge of voice recognition was zilch.'

A Dragon representative said there would continue to be support for Endeavour's customers.

In April, Endeavour became the master distributor for Belgian voice recognition specialist Lernout & Hauspie (L&H). Martin Pickering, vice president of European sales and marketing at L&H, admitted the company was 'in discussion' with Endeavour. 'We were an OEM supplier to Endeavour, so there are few implications for our customers,' he said.

PC Dealer could not make telephone contact with Endeavour and its Website was not responding.