J.D. Edwards Closes Out Millennium on an Up Note
P.J. Jakovljevic - December 15, 1999

Event Summary

On December 1, J.D. Edwards surprised Wall Street by returning to profitability in the fourth quarter, a sign the market may be turning around for J.D. Edwards as companies wrap up Y2K fixes and turn to implementing new software again. J.D. Edwards' Q499 revenue was $257.6M, down 16% from Q498 revenue of $307.1M. Profits for the recent quarter, which ended October 31, were $3.8M, a 90% slide from last year's fourth-quarter profits of $37.7M. But it was the first time J.D. Edwards has posted a profit after a string of losing quarters. The company's license fee revenue for Q499 was $101M, compared to $143.5M in Q498. Services accounted for $156.6M in revenue, compared to $163.6M for the same period last year. For the year, revenue was $944.2M, a dismal 1% increase from last year's revenue of $934M. The company posted a net loss of $7.9M, excluding acquisition-related costs, for the 1999 fiscal year, compared to profits of $74.5M last year. Including acquisitions, the loss for 1999 was $39.2M. Earlier this year, J.D. Edwards bought supply chain vendor Numetrix to round out its supply chain products. This year, most of the ERP vendors have posted sluggish earnings as customers turned their attention and IT dollars toward fixing last-minute Y2K glitches...