Long-Awaited dBase Software by Ashton-Tate Delayed Again

Ashton-Tate, prompted by a report from a securities analyst and a day of heavy trading in its stock, acknowledged late Tuesday that it could be nearly three weeks behind schedule in shipping its long-awaited dBase IV database software product.

The company’s stock was the sixth most actively traded on the over-the-counter market, closing at $24.25, down $2, as 1.4 million shares changed hands.

The Torrance-based microcomputer software concern said it would ship the new product in two to three weeks, instead of Friday, as previously scheduled. The company made the announcement after an analyst reported a likely delay.

“With dBase IV in the certification (final testing and debugging) process, we are fully confident that customers will receive production units in volume before the end of our fiscal (third) quarter, Oct. 31,” Ashton-Tate’s chairman and chief executive, Edward M. Esber Jr., said in a prepared statement.

Several analysts also said they expected the company to ship the product before the end of the current quarter.

Release of the new package was delayed in February, when Ashton-Tate said the product would be shipped by the end of July.

Sales of dBase products accounted for 64% of the firm’s revenue for its fiscal year ended January, 1988.

Analyst David Readerman of Shearson Lehman Hutton, whose report of the delay to the firm’s sales staff apparently helped trigger the active stock trading, said: “What is important is not that they meet the Sept. 30 target, but that they at least ship by Oct. 15. From a financial standpoint, Oct. 15 is important” to enable the firm to record enough sales for the product before the end of the quarter.