Eloquent Reduces Staff by 45 percent

Eloquent (www.eloquent.com) announced that it is restructuring into two business units -- the Software Business Unit and the Content Business Unit. In addition, Eloquent announced that it is reducing its staff by 45 percent, or approximately 76 people, in order to reduce the cash burn rate. Eloquent attributed the announcement to a move to better align itself with future market opportunities brought about by its new product introductions and the recent formation of a strategic partnership with Microsoft. The restructuring will take place on January 1.

.The Software Business Unit will support enterprise content creation, management, and delivery software by providing a rich media publishing platform, including the recently released, Eloquent Communications Server 6.1 (ECS 6.1). The Content Business Unit will combine content production and hosted delivery. It will continue to provide Eloquent's strategic customers with outsourced production and delivery of rich media content.

Eloquent highlights its October 24, 2000 agreement to form a strategic relationship with Microsoft, to develop a comprehensive enterprise streaming solution, as an example of its future promise. Eloquent believes that its partnership with Microsoft will begin to positively affect its earning halfway through next year.

Eloquent expects that its restructuring efforts will reduce its loss for the first quarter of 2001 to between $3.5 and $4 million, as compared to a loss of approximately $8.5 million for the quarter ending December 2000.

The restructuring effort will cause the company to incur a one-time cost of approximately $5 million. John Curson, CFO of Eloquent, states that the company still boasts $37 million in cash with no bank debt.