Ashton-Tate Posts Another Loss; Slide Seen Continuing

Citing continuing depressed sales of its flagship personal computer software program, Ashton-Tate Corp. Wednesday reported a second-quarter loss of $12.6 million on a 19% fall in revenue to $48.1 million.

Officials of the Torrance-based company further cautioned that the steep slide that began nearly two years ago with the release of an error-riddled version of the popular dBase program is not expected to reverse soon.

Ashton-Tate President William P. Lyons said that although the company expects to release a corrected and updated version of dBase IV soon, he advised against expecting an immediate return to previous sales levels and profitability.

The second quarter was the fifth-consecutive period that Ashton-Tate has lost money, bringing total losses in the past 15 months to more than $50 million.

Losses for the first six months of 1990 totaled $13.5 million, compared to a $8.3-million deficit a year ago. Sales were $105.1 million, 30% below the $149.3 million recorded a year ago. Second-quarter losses last year were $19.8 million on sales on $59.5 million.

Lyons said final testing of the dBaseIV program is under way, the last step before the product can be released. However, he repeatedly refused to pinpoint when the product will be released for sale.