Losses spur Exabyte to consider selling company

By Business Report Staff

Boulder data-storage company Exabyte Corp. (Nasdaq: EXBT) is considering selling the company following reports of widening fourth-quarter losses.

Steve Smith, chief financial officer and general counsel at Exabyte, said a decision regarding a possible sale of the company or other alternatives to increase liquidity should emerge in the next few months.

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Exabyte reported a net loss of $43.4 million for the fourth quarter 2000, compared to a loss of $11.9 million in the same quarter last year. Revenue for the fourth quarter was $61.2 million, compared with $58.6 million in the same quarter 1999.

Besides selling all or part of the company’s operating assets, Exabyte is exploring several options to increase liquidity. Alternatives include restructuring operations, securing additional infusions of equity, modifying its credit line or seeking a strategic alliance, merger or acquisition.

In order to remain a stand-alone entity, Smith said Exabyte will have to secure an outside equity infusion. To assist in evaluating its options, Exabyte has enlisted the services of investment banking firm Broadview International. Lou Faust has been named acting chief executive officer of Requisite Technology. He succeeds Barbara Mowry, who served as CEO since the Westminster-based company’s inception in 1993.

Mowry will leave Requisite following Faust’s appointment. Linda Dill, vice president of investor relations, said it was a personal decision. “Once she had made the decision, the goal was to transition it quickly.”

Prior to this appointment, Faust served as chief operating officer of Requisite. When The Business Report spoke to the company in June 2000, it was in a quiet period. Dill said the company is still in a quiet period and still plans to do an initial public offering in the future.Broomfield-based eSoft Inc., a provider of broadband Internet access, has closed its SmartDSL unit after launching it last August. Fourteen employees were laid off, and 10 employees were transferred to other business activities within the company. The laid-off employees were in sales and operations positions for SmartDSL.

The company blames the demise of SmartDSL on the inability by DSL, or digital subscriber lines, suppliers to make the necessary connections for its customers. eSoft mostly worked with RMI.Net, now known as Internet Commerce and Communications.

While the company suspended the sales and marketing of SmartDSL, it will continue to bill and service existing customers. Jane Merickel, who was general manager of the unit, resigned from the company shortly after her position with SmartDSL was eliminated.XOR Inc., a Boulder-based developer and manager of e-business solutions, has laid off between 40 and 60 employees, or 10 to 15 percent of its workforce nationwide. XOR officials would not disclose how many positions were cut in the Boulder office.

Prior to the cuts, XOR employed 400 people nationwide, according to a Jan. 30 release issued by the company. Most employees worked out of the company’s offices here and in Chicago. XOR did not specify the areas where most of the cuts occurred, but Web developers who specialized in HTML coding were among those who were laid off as the industry moves toward Java programming. Bid4Vacations.com, a Westminster-based online auctioneer of vacation travel packages, has cut more than half its workforce. The company did not disclose the specific number of job losses. Last summer, the company employed approximately 40 employees. At that time, the company landed $2 million in venture financing from Boulder-based Sequel Venture Partners. Earlier in the year, Bid4 received $4 million of venture capital.

Pamela Bergeson, Bid4Vacations.com’s founder and president, was removed from her position, but will remain on the company’s board of directors. Vice President of Marketing Matt Garton now ranks as the company’s highest level executive. The Boulder Community Network has named Susan Silodor as its new executive director. The Boulder Community Network was established in 1994 to serve as the bridge between information technology and the community. It provides public access computers and volunteers to help those learning the Web. It also offers courses for senior citizens just getting started in the cyber world.

Silodor has more than 25 years of experience in Denver’s non-profit world. Managing Partner Lee Benton of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Cooley Godward LLP, a law firm with offices in Broomfield and Denver, has resigned. As a result, the firm has created two new executive positions and appointed Stephen C. Neal as chairman and chief executive officer and Mark Pitchford as chief operating officer of the firm.

Benton will resume practicing corporate law with the firm and also will continue to be a member of Cooley Godward’s Management and Strategic Planning Committees. Cooley Godward has eight offices in four states and specializes in representing information technology and life sciences companies.Best Buy Co. Inc., an electronics-retail chain based in Minneapolis, is planning to hire 100 employees for its new store in Broomfield, scheduled to open this spring at Flatiron Circle. Applicants can apply by phone at (888) 639-5629 and follow an automated application process via a touch-tone menu. The jobs available include cashiers, customer service representatives, stockers, music and software specialists, shipping and receiving and sales team leaders. Lucent Technologies Inc.’s plan to cut 16,000 jobs companywide will not affect its spin-off company, Agere Systems in Longmont. Agere was formed out of Lucent’s Microelectronics Group last summer, which had a presence in both Longmont and Boulder. Agere is in the process of becoming its own company, with an initial public offering planned for March and total independence from Lucent sometime this summer.

Thirty employees from the former Lucent Microelectronics Group in Boulder and Longmont will be consolidated in the new Agere facility in Longmont. The new company has facilities in 22 countries and a total of 16,000 employees. It hopes to have 60 employees in Longmont by year’s end.Celebrity worship in America was not enough to keep Chicago-based MVP.com alive. Backed by sports luminaries John Elway, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky, MVP.com will shut down later this month just a year after the business launched. Its final 43 employees will be let go.

MVP.com had offices in Boulder which were closed late last year when over half of its staff of 166 was laid off. The company has sold its domain name and trademarks to Sportsline.com, its former e-commerce partner. Apparently, the millions of Americans who live vicariously through these multimillionaire sports figures did not buy enough of MVP.com’s merchandise to keep it afloat.