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BUSINESS WATCH
Biometric Technology Today • January 20035
Financial results
Identix disappoints withsales figures slumpIdentix is feeling the full brunt of the globalslowdown as it announced revenue expectationswell below its earlier forecasts.
In August 2002, the company had been bullishin its forecasts that sales would reach US$27–30million in its second fiscal quarter ended 31December 2002. In its latest announcement,however, the company reduced its forecast toUS$20–23 million. Net loss per share expectationsalso worsened to US$0.06–US$0.08 fromUS$0.05–US$0.07, before charges related to therestructure, integration or the merger of Identix andVisionics, and before stock compensation charges.
The slump was due primarily to slower thanexpected sales in the federal, state and local govern-ment markets and continued commercial spendingcontraction. In particular the company blamed:• continued budgetary and appropriation
delays at the federal level;• reduced federal government product orders
due in part to uncertainty surrounding variousagencies’ role and positioning within the newlycreated Department of Homeland Security;
• lack of federal grants and matching dollars forstate and local projects;
• a significant increase in state and local budgetdeficits throughout the nation;
• a delay in final state level certification of theIdentix full hand scanner; and
• weakness in the overall economy and continuedsoftness in information technology spending,
Identix also downgraded its expectations for theremainder of fiscal 2003 to US$20–27 million.Despite the bad news, Identix president and CEOJoseph Atick commented: “We do not believethat these short-term results put the company’slong-term strategy in question.”
Contact: Damon Wright at Identix,Tel: +1 952 979 8485, email: [email protected]
Company news
Precise Biometrics sharessuccessPrecise Biometrics has received an injection ofcapital in a share issue worth SEK 31.7 million.The shares proved so popular that they wereoversubscribed. The company will issue7,913,000 series A shares. The total number of
shares after the issue amounts to 11,870,100,before any exercising of share options.
Meanwhile, Precise Biometrics and ActivCardhave expanded their relationship in a bid to meetthe increasing demand for biometric smart IDcard badges. ActivCard’s identity managementsoftware ActivCard Gold 2.2 will have Precise’sMatch-on-Card capabilities added to itsfunctionality. This will allow users of theActivCard product to strengthen the PIN-basedauthentication of their smart cards.
The extended cooperation with ActivCard notonly gives Precise Biometrics the chance to pursuethe growing number of opportunities withincivilian government agencies and industry, but alsoto continue its ongoing sales within US DoD.
Contact: Christer Bergman at Precise Biometrics,Tel: +1 703 405 8255, email: [email protected]
Company news
Saflink adds identificatonalgorithm, recruits ColatostiSaflink Corporation has reached an agreementwith BIO-key International to license BIO-key’sfingerprint identification algorithms. Saflinkplans to include BIO-key’s “one-to-many”fingerprint-matching algorithm in its productline, and will work with BIO-key to offercustom integration solutions for enterprisesthat require highly specialized one-to-manyfingerprint identification capabilities.
As part of the deal, the companies will worktogether to bring the BIO-key technology incompliance with the BioAPI industry inter-operability standard. This would allow enterprisecustomers to use Saflink’s biometric middlewaresolution without having to enter a user ID number.
In addition to fingerprint identification,Saflink software is compliant with a number ofother authentication methods, including irisscanning, facial recognition, speech recognitionand smart cards.
Meanwhile, Saflink has announced the forma-tion of a board of advisors to help the companymanage its increasing market opportunities.
The board’s first appointment is Tom Colatosti,former president and CEO of facial recognitiontechnology supplier Viisage Technology. DuringColatosti’s time at Viisage the supplier raised overUS$40 million in private financing, doubled itsrevenues, achieved profitability and acquired theassets of two companies.
Contact: Thomas Doggett at Saflink,Tel: +1 800 762 9595, email: [email protected]
C o m p a n yn e w s
• Ultra-Scan Corporation hasreceived an additional injectionof funding amounting toUS$200,000 from Rand.Ultra-Scan, based in New York,produces fingerprint imagingsystems based on the principleof ultrasound. The companyclaims its technology is used inhealthcare, security, lawenforcement, access controland identity screening applica-tions. Ultra-Scan recentlyretained the firm of Friedman,Billings, Ramsey & Co. toprovide investment bankingand financial advisory services.
• Security Biometrics hassigned a licensing, integrationand royalty agreement withArrillion Software. Arrilion willintegrate Security Biometrics’PenFlow technology into itsVirtual Sign In Systems, whichare designed to track, authen-ticate and verify patients’ visitsto healthcare professionals.Penflow dynamic signatureverification technology offers anaudit trail of personnel accessingconfidential electronic data.
• UK-based Datastrip, aprovider of 2D barcodetechnology, and ImageMetrics have formed apartnership to enable a facebiometric to be held within a2D barcode and reconstructedin photo-realistic form on ahand-held device. The compa-nies claim there are oftenproblems when storing facialimages on cards, as templatesizes can leave very littlecapacity for any other infor-mation. Using Image Metrics’Optasia technology thistemplate size can be reduced to400 bytes. Additionally, theimage reconstruction capa-bilities of the software allowphoto-quality images to beused if it is necessary tomanually verify a person’sidentity, rather than use thebiometric template forautomatic matching.
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