Apr. 14--Radius Inc., once a fast-growing maker of graphics boards and upscale monitors for Macintosh computers, garnered a dubious distinction last year. It tumbled 75 spots in the Silicon Valley 150, from No. 64 to No. 139 -- by far the biggest drop of any company.
Blame it on fierce new competition in monitors, which pushed it out of that business; the mounting decline of Apple Computer Inc.; and restructurings that led to the sale of most of three divisions.
The lesson? If a company doesn't offer particularly inexpensive products, which Sunnyvale-based Radius did not, it should make a point of staying at the leading edge of new product development. Radius didn't do that, either. As a result, it has joined the ranks of decaying Silicon Valley companies that Mike Murphy, editor of the California Technology Stock Letter, calls "the living dead."
Radius has been sliding downhill since fiscal year 1993. Revenues peaked that year at $337.4 million. In subsequent years, they tumbled to $325 million and $308 million, then plunged to $90.3 million in fiscal 1996.
At least there is hope for Radius. The asset sales have improved a limp balance sheet. Today, Radius specializes in digital video and color enhancement add-on boards for the Mac. It also makes high-end graphics boards, serving one of Apple's few remaining areas of strength. And CEO Chuck Berger says the company will offer comparable products for the PC world by September.
"Radius might do OK at long last," says Lee Schugar, a Dataquest analyst. "Moving into the PC space will introduce them to a tremendous installed base of new customers."
-----
ON THE INTERNET:
Visit Mercury Center, the World Wide Web site of the San Jose Mercury News, at http://www.sjmercury.com
-----
(c) 1997, San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News.
RDUS,
No comments:
Post a Comment