Computerworld (New Zealand) -
Endace growth constrained by lack of talent
Despite posting over 50% year-on-year growth, company feels the pinch
By Rob O'Neill Auckland | Wednesday, 18 April, 2007
New Zealand network appliance developer Endace has posted stellar year-on-year results, but says its growth is being constrained by a desperate lack of engineering talent.
Endace, which makes technology that monitors traffic on high-speed networks, has announced it anticipates sales in the US$16.5 to US$17 million (NZ$22 to NZ$22.9 million) range for the year ended 31 March and a profit north of US$3.4 million. That compares with sales of US$10.8 million last year.
Endace, which became the first New Zealand registered company to list on the London Stock Exchange's alternative AIM market in mid 2005, could have done even better, according to CEO Selwyn Pellett if it could find and hire more engineers.
"We are seriously struggling to recruit," Pellett told Computerworld this week. "We are even printing booklets about why people would want to come and work for us and targeting international recruitment."
Two months ago, Endace launched a local recruitment campaign, but that has not succeeded in feeding the company's hunger for engineering talent.
"It is restricting our growth," Pellett says. "The numbers could have been bigger if the engineering team was larger."
That's because Endace is moving its industrial-strength network monitoring technologies into appliances that can be easily installed in organisations such as telecommunications companies, ISPs and large corporates.
Pellett says the strategy is directly responsible for Endace's revenue and profit growth. The appliances average in price around US$20,000 to US$40,000 each compared to selling component cards, as the company did previously, at US$5,000 to US$6,000 each. Endace has recently sold one appliance to monitor a 40GB network for US$250,000.
As to the AIM listing, Pellett reports mixed results. He says its a good place to raise money, but stocks don't become liquid, or actively tradeable, until a company crosses around US$50 million in revenue.
That would certainly appear to be the case if you compare the values of Endace and New Zealand Exchange listed Rakon. Endace is still trading around its list price while Rakon is trading at $4.60 compared with its $1.60 offer price in May 2006.