By Duncan Martell
PALO ALTO: Informix Corporation, a maker of database software, on Thursday fired Chief Executive Jean-Yves Dexmier, replacing him with board member Peter Gyenes just a little more than a week after Informix surprised investors with a weaker-than-expected second quarter.
The board of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Informix met on Wednesday night, said spokeswoman Melora Foley. "They felt that a change was in order," Foley said.
Gyenes, 54, becomes chief executive immediately, replacing Dexmier, 48, who held the position since July 1999. Gyenes was the chairman, president and chief executive of Ardent Software Inc., which Informix purchased March 1.
On July 3, Informix said that because of slack sales and a strong dollar, it expected earnings per share to be 1 cent to 3 cents a share, compared with a pro forma profit of 6 cents a year ago. Analysts had been expecting it to report a profit of 12 cents a share, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.
The company at the time estimated revenues would fall to $240 million to $250 million from $250.6 million a year ago, ending six consecutive quarters of growth. It was also hurt by competition from Oracle, Sybase Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp., its major competitors.
Informix plans to report second-quarter earnings July 19.
Informix, which once was a high-flying software company until it was forced to restate three years of earnings because of accounting improprieties, has seen its market value dwindle to little more than $1.3 billion from $4.7 billion, when its shares reached an April high.
Now, the company is seeking to transform itself from a traditional database software company to a broader provider of infrastructure and other products and technologies to help customers integrate Web content, transactions and business intelligence, said Gyenes in an interview.
"We view this as basically the more contemporary version of the database marketplace," Gyenes said. "We think we have a very strong accumulation of technology and products."
Gyenes added that Dexmier was "involved in the process of determining whether or not we needed a change in leadership and what that change might be." Dexmier could not immediately be reached to comment. Informix stock rose 1/2 to 4-15/16 in Nasdaq trading.
(C) Reuters Limited 2000.