Objectivity unveils US flotation plans

Software Vendor breaks out of traditional market to boost growth.

Objectivity is planning to float on the US Stock Exchange by the. middle of next year, to pay off its venture capitalists and enable staff to cash in their stock options.

The object database vendor has about 60 employees. Revenue has grown at about 10 per cent each quarter for the past two quarters and the company has been profitable for the past five.

Speaking at Objectivity's Worldview 99 user conference in Santa Clara, Dave Caplan, president of Objectivity, said: 'Our employees and investors expect us to go public. We'll keep the cash in the bank because we don't need it for growth purposes.'

He added: 'But diversification to fuel growth is a long way off and we're not looking at acquisitions. Java is helping and there are more object tools available, but the skills issue is also improving because the market is more mature.'

To fuel growth, the vendor is trying to broaden out of its traditional reseller base to target corporate MIS departments. It is hoping to exploit interest in server-side Java and claims sales cycles have been cut from nine months to 90 days because Java is easier to work with than the traditional object language of C++.

As a result, Objectivity is teaming with systems integrators to try to penetrate large business space and has signed up Noblestar, TRW, Salient and Objectshare to provide users with object implementation skills, which are currently in short supply.

John Myser, vice president of sales at Objectivity, said: 'MIS doesn't have the ability in a lot of cases to deliver object systems, so we're starting to unfold the capability to help with project implementation.

It doesn't have the horsepower or the ability to assemble a team, but we're going after turnkey projects where people want to control their complexity.

'As a result, we're expanding the current sales base because we need to go beyond the technical wizards to target chief financial officers and we'll do that via systems integrators. Our typical prospect is either brilliant technically or desperate because their relational projects have failed,' he added.