Artwork sees large drop
in prepress revenues
Artwork Systems, the Belgium based prepress group currently undergoing a strategic review, posted a significant drop in sales and profits for the second quarter. Revenues for the three months to March 31 fell 17 percent to €10.3 million (US$13.75 million) from €12.6 million (US$16.82 million) during the same period in 2006. Pre-tax profits dropped 34 percent to €2.8 million (US$3.73 million) from €4.4 million (US$5.87 million). First half revenues were down 12.5 percent and net income dropped 25.32 percent, compared with a year before.
Sales during the first quarter of fiscal 2007 were split between products at 62 percent and services at 38 percent. The percentage of revenues for each regional market remained relatively stable. The share of the Americas decreased from 40 percent to 39 percent, Europe decreased from 53 percent to 52 percent, Asia’s share increased from 5 to 7 percent, and the rest of the world remained stable at 2 percent.
“We had expected the second quarter results to be in line with those of the first quarter,” says chairman Guido Van der Schueren. “This was, however, not the case and Q2 turned out to be weaker than expected on the revenue side in the US, the UK and in France. In general, there was a delay in decision making. However, the picture looks bleaker than it actually is. Order intake in the second quarter clearly indicated that we are on track to achieve the targets we set for the financial year 2007. In the second half of this fiscal year we can expect a much improved business on the Enfocus side given that they have the biggest product launch in their history.”
• Spoiling the party for Enfocus is a lawsuit served by arch rival Markzware. Filed in a US district court in California, the suit alleges that PitStop Pro — an Adobe plug-in — and PitStop Server PDF preflight software infringe the US patent of Markzware’s FlightCheck software. Artwork’s CEO, Peter Denoo, said the company respects the intellectual property rights of third parties and is investigating what he describes as unsupportable allegations. “We do not expect this lawsuit to interfere in any way with Enfocus’ ability to continue offering and supporting its popular PDF preflighting products, now or in the future.”