MatrixOne Reports 2Q Loss, Blames EconomyMatrixOne Reports 2Q Loss, Blames Economy

MatrixOne Inc., a collaborative product-development and design software vendor, on Wednesday posted a net loss of $9.2 million, or 20 cents a share, for the second quarter, blaming a weak economy for the lackluster results. The loss compared to a net income of $2.2 million, or 4 cents a share, for the same quarter a year ago. Revenue also dropped for the quarter ended Dec. 29 to $31.1 million from $34.3 million.

For the first six months of the fiscal year, the company reported a net loss of $21.2 million, or $0.46 per share, on total revenue of $55 million, compared to a net income of $2.7 million, or $0.05 per share, on revenue of $62.8 million in the same period last year.

Mark O'Connell, president and CEO, blamed the downturn in the economy for the weak quarter but said the company showed the ability to protect against greater losses by adapting to changes in the economy with changes in the business.

New customers during the quarter included BTicino, providers of electric equipment for residential and commercial buildings; Shanghai Bell, a Chinese telecommunications equipment company; Venture Industries, an automotive plastics supplier; Venture Manufacturing, an electronics services provider; and Yazaki Corp., a vehicle power and data-management company.

Also on Wednesday, MatrixOne announced a new strategic alliance with IBM in which the companies will offer MatrixOne's product-development software running on IBM hardware, an alliance similar to others IBM has used to help sales of its hardware, enterprise application integration, Web services, and other technologies.