CEO declines comment on reported MIPS rebellion

CEO declines comment on reported MIPS rebellion
By Michael Santarini, EE Times
October 23, 2002 (8:55 a.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20021022S0044

SAN MATEO, Calif.— The chief executive of MIPS Technologies Inc. Tuesday (Oct. 22) declined comment on a report that some licensees of the RISC processor architecture are rebelling over management strategy.

Some MIPS licensees, frustrated that the cores vendor is focusing on the 64-bit core market instead of 32-bit segment, are quietly MIPS on Tuesday reported revenues of $9.4 million, a 24 percent decline compared to $12.5 million for the same quarter last year.

"It is evident that the weakness in demand for semiconductor products and intellectual property is not going to go away anytim e soon," Bourgoin said. "Well over a year into this downturn MIPS is experiencing lighter demand than in anytime during the prior year."

MIPS, which warned of layoffs and that it would not hit its numbers earlier this month, reported this week that revenue, excluding revenue from its Nintendo 64 video game products, declined by 16 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago.

"Fewer opportunities"

The company reported revenue received from architecture licenses for the quarter was $5.9 million, a decrease of 24 percent compared to $7.8 million in the comparable period in fiscal 2002. The company only signed up two new licensees for the quarter.

"We are not losing deals, there are simply fewer opportunities to be had," said Bourgoin.

Revenue from core royalties was $3.5 million, a decrease of 25 percent compared to $4.7 million in the same quarter a year ago, due to lower royalties from Nintendo 64 video game products. The $3.5 million in core royalty revenues however tops b y 10 percent MIPS royalties for the previous quarter, which were $3.2 million.

The company reported a net loss for fiscal Q1 2003 of $3.9 million, compared to a net loss of $927,000 for the same quarter last year. The company also reported a diluted net loss per share for the first quarter of fiscal 2003 was $0.10 compared to a diluted net loss share of $0.02 for the same quarter a year ago.

The company expected in the near term that contract revenues would be "flat or slightly down compared to fiscal Q1 2003." The company declined to give full year guidance for fiscal 2003.

Bourgoin said the company has been cutting expenditures by $1 million this quarter, most of which came from closing its 55 employee Denmark development center which mainly developed 32-bit soft cores for MIPS.

"We explored several options for the team [in Denmark] and have now made the decision to shut down a facility and consolidate key activities performed there in Mountain View," said Bourgoin, who noted that the comp any has also cut jobs in MIPS U.S. offices.

"The management team is taking measures to mitigate the impact of these decisions to ensure seamless support for customers and a continued focus on critical product development so MIPS technologies maintains its position as the leading provider of high performance technology to the embedded marketplace."

Bourgoin said he does not expect these cuts will return MIPS immediately to profitability and that the company will make a concerted effort to drive its revenues up, noting the company has revised its sales team.