Progress grows enterprise infrastructure business 25% in Q1

Progress Software has announced a 6% growth in first-quarter revenue for the period ended 29 February 2008. Revenue for the quarter was $121.6 million, up 6% from $115.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2007.

On a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis, operating income increased 39% to $17.1 million from $12.4 million, and net income increased 47% to $12.8 million from $8.7 million in the same quarter last year. Diluted earnings per share increased 45% to 29c from 20c in the first quarter of fiscal 2007.

Software licence revenue increased 1% to $45.1 million from $44.7 million in the same quarter last year.

The company's cash and short-term investments at the end of the quarter totalled $224 million.

Rick Parry, MD of Progress Software South Africa, notes: "Progress achieved strong growth in its enterprise infrastructure business, driven by customer deployments of services-oriented architecture, or SOA. Our traditional OpenEdge revenue was within expectations, and although our DataDirect product line achieved slower growth than we anticipated, this product line should produce stronger results in the remainder of the year. Overall, Progress's near-term business outlook is solid despite global uncertainties.

"South Africa continues to be one of the best performing countries in the Progress stable," adds Parry. "We continue to grow our software as a service revenue, which helps smooth our annuity income, we are enjoying steady take-up of enterprise infrastructure products, and South African customers have embraced EasyAsk in volumes and innovation unmatched anywhere else in the world."

The company had a number of quarterly highlights to report:

* Progress Actional was positioned in the leaders quadrant of the Gartner 2007 Magic Quadrant for Integrated SOA Governance Technology Sets.
* Progress launched Actional 7.1, comprising new capabilities that position Actional as the industry's only SOA and Web services management product family that can provide unified visibility within existing business process management (BPM) solutions, and beyond the edges of BPM processes into middleware and services.
* Progress launched Apama Smart Order Router (SOR) Accelerator, which advances traders' ability to monitor and select trade execution venues and comply with stringent and complex best execution requirements.
* Turquoise, the multi-lateral trading facility (MTF) established by nine leading European investment banks, partnered with Progress and Detica to deliver a real-time market surveillance system.
* Progress released a new version of DataXtend Semantic Integrator (SI) 8.3. This will enable communication service providers to synchronise their disparate and distributed data with new change data capture functionality.
* The Progress OpenEdge business application development platform was recognised for worldwide leadership in the 'pure-play' embedded database management systems market in an IDC report released in December 2007.
* Progress announced the selection of EasyAsk for operational business intelligence by South African companies, including Nedbank, Europ Assistance, Matrix Vehicle Tracking, and Integrated Healthcare Distribution.

* The following organisations became new Progress customers or partners, adopted additional Progress technologies, or made major deployments of Progress technologies in the past quarter: Adobe Systems, Alcatel, American Family Life Assurance, Associated Newspapers, Barclay's Global Investors, BIDS Holdings, BNP Paribas, Boeing, Boehringer Ingelheim International, BWI Systems, Ceridian, Cerner, Citigroup, City of Seattle, Cicero Group, Compuware, Copel Distribution, CRS Retail Systems, Daimler AG, Datasul, DemandTech, Dollar Thrifty Automotive, Dow Jones, EDS, Epicor, Ercot, Facilicom Services Group, FedEx, Frontier Communications, General Dynamics, GE Healthcare, General Nutrition Company, Hanley Group, Hartford Life, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, ING, Iron Mountain, KAZ Group Limited, Lockheed Martin, McGraw Hill Companies, MetLife, Nataxis Asset Management, National Institute of Enferm, National Library of Scotland, NCR, Network Research Belgium, New York Life, Nortel Networks, Optical Superstore Pearle Europe, PJM Interconnection, Port Infolink, QAD, Quantum Data Systems, Riagg Zuid, Royal Bank of Canada, RSA Security, Sage Software, Sandvine, SG Americas Operational, Specsavers, Staples, State of Colorado, State of Connecticut, Sungard Computer Services, Synaptris, Technical, Tokyo University Annexed Hospital, Turquoise, United Healthcare, Verizon Wireless, Wells Fargo, Western Asset Management and West Bend Mutual Insurance.

The company is providing the following guidance for the fiscal year ending 30 November 2008: revenue is expected to be in the range of $520 million to $530 million; GAAP diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $1.35 to $1.40.