Data Stream

AverStar Inc. of Burlington, Mass., is undaunted in its quest to become a publicly traded company, even though market conditions in mid-August forced the company to postpone its initial public offering.

AverStar had hoped for its coming-out party the week of Aug. 9, but when Wall Street met a downturn that hit technology stocks hard, company officials pulled back, said spokesman Paul Serotkin. Sixteen other companies also delayed their initial public offerings that week.

No date has been set for a second try, but "we are continually communicating with our investment bankers [Bear Stearns of New York and Legg Mason of Baltimore] and we hope to go out as early as possible," Serotkin said.
Sequoia Software Corp., Columbia, Md., acquired Radian Systems Inc., Alexandria, Va., Aug. 23 for an undisclosed amount of stock and cash.

Richard Faint, chief executive officer of Sequoia Software, said the acquisition will accelerate his company's efforts to gain business from numerous markets, including federal and state governments. Sequoia develops XML-powered enterprise portal solutions for commercial and government customers.

Radian, a software development and professional services firm, has worked for the departments of Housing and Urban Development and State, the Patent and Trademark Office, the Veterans Benefits Administration and the Texas State Comptroller's Office.
The National Business Center of the Interior Department is seeking capability statements from contractors for off-the-shelf software to set up and maintain a secure Web repository of departmental policy directives.

The repository will include department manual chapters, secretary's orders and office bulletins, and should be viewable and searchable and its contents retrievable by anyone from anywhere. It may be expanded to store bureau documents or other departmental or policy documents.

A further requirement is that the repository have full text search capability, with a user able to search documents by any word or phrase, by title or by date.
Dallas-based Tyler Technologies Inc. has purchased a 30 percent stake in HTE Inc., with an eye toward merging its operations with the Lake Mary, Fla.-based provider of enterprisewide software solutions for the public sector.

Brian Miller, vice president of finance for Tyler Technologies, said his company is trying to build a national, integrated information management company with a focus on the county and municipal government market.

"We believe that a combination of Tyler and HTE would result in significant economies of scale and synergies, create enhanced service offerings to customers and provide greater opportunities for the employees of both companies," he said.

HTE officials would not comment on the proposal, but in a prepared statement HTE Chairman Bernard Markey said the company's board would consider all options that would benefit its shareholders.

Tyler Technologies, a provider of software products and electronic document management systems, has annual revenue of $115 million. HTE reported 1998 revenue of $99 million. Tyler announced Aug. 23 it had purchased the HTE stock.
The number of year 2000-related lawsuits being filed is lower than expected, according to an Aug. 24 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

As of June 30, only 74 cases had been filed against 45 defendants. The rate at which suits are being filed also fell, with 13 new suits in the first half of 1999, compared with 21 in the second half of 1998.

"The plaintiffs' bar appears to be taking a wait-and-see approach," said Philip Upton, a PricewaterhouseCoopers partner and author of the report. The report does not cover the period after July 20, when President Clinton signed the Year 2000 Information Readiness and Responsibility Act that, among other objectives, is designed to reduce Y2K-related lawsuits.
The Army has tapped Logicon Inc. of Herndon, Va., for a $214 million contract to support battle command training.

The Battle Command Training Program contract was awarded Aug. 23 and has a one-year base and four option years. Logicon provides support services such as planning, scenario development, simulation use training, exercise execution and after-action review.

Harlan Johnston, president of Logicon's Advanced Technology unit in San Pedro, Calif., said the Army project is critically important to Logicon. "This contract forms the centerpiece of Logicon's training and simulation business area."

Logicon's teammates include Coleman Research Corp. of Fairfax, Va., and Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego.
The National Science Foundation has announced plans to sponsor exploratory research on scalable enterprise systems.

The research will cover manufacturing systems and the financial management, human resource management, sales and marketing aspects of the enterprise. Because the Internet quickly is becoming a key deployment environment, issues of scalability will be key in the development of this science base for enterprisewide business automation.

The NSF released a program solicitation for the research Aug. 15 and set a Dec. 15 deadline for submissions. The NSF is an independent federal government agency that invests over $3.3 billion per year in research and education projects in science and engineering.
American Management Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va., received a five-year, $50 million contract from Hawaii's Department of Taxation to improve the state's taxpayer services and collection operations, the company announced Aug. 23.

The new Integrated Tax Information Management System is designed to make complying with tax laws easier and evading taxes more difficult. State officials expect the new system to generate more than $20 million annually in additional tax revenue for the Department of Taxation after the project is completed.

Under its "benefits funded" partnership with Hawaii, AMS will be paid from the additional tax revenue generated by its system. AMS had revenue of $1 billion in 1998, including $282 million from its state and local government practice. The National Institute of Standards and Technology will hold a workshop Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 to examine new industry standards for digital versatile disc technology.

Featuring industry executives from major American and Japanese companies, the workshop will address issues such as copyright protection, emerging DVD authoring technologies, electronic books and Web-based DVD products.

A DVD can hold seven to eight times as much information as a compact disc of the same size. DVDs can store music, film and computerized information. Standards are needed to ensure that consumers will be able to use any DVD in any DVD player.

The workshop will be hosted with the Optical Storage Technology Association and held at NIST in Gaithersburg, Md. NIST is part of the Commerce Department.