DM: Can you give us some background on the lawsuit with SRC? Right now we have only the report provided by the Albany Times Union.
Mike Hickey (MH): One of the major inaccuracies in that article (Albany Time Union) was that it stated that SRC accuses MapInfo of co-opting its technology and selling it as its own, and SRC has not accused us of that. It was not the basis of the lawsuit. So, I think one of the bases of the lawsuit from their perspective was that they thought there was what their lawyer called in that article an “unfair business practice” where a partner was demonstrating (TargetPro) 3.7 technology which had the components of the SRC technology and then would try to sell them the 4.0 version. Of course, from our perspective, that is not a program that we certainly would not want anyone doing. We're proud of our own technology. Our partners have separate businesses. We don't control what they do. So, for us, its a little off mark, that we're being sued for something that our partners have done.

From a straightforward perspective, our lawsuit was based on a collections thing. It's kind of boring. Someone owes you money; you exhaust your efforts to try to get payment. So, as a last step you are forced to take them to court, which is what we have done.

DM: On the surface that appears to be what it is. Why the large counter suit on SRC’s part? It seems out of proportion as to what is being discussed.
MH: Well, I can certainly give you opinions on that. I may be overstepping my bounds doing that. We have the same reaction. It seems to me that it was a PR initiative. To try to get it as high as possible. Don't know why. Certainly, we're confident in our position, and in due course, we believe all that stuff will sort itself out.

DM: With the 4.0 release of TargetPro, this is entirely MapInfo technology, entirely MapInfo data, so has the underlying code been rewritten not to include the SRC component?
MH: That's correct. You just did an article about our analytical CRM activities. It's between 15% and 20% of our revenue stream; it's a growth opportunity for us as a company and we're going after that aggressively. You also know that in the software industry when you put together a solution, many times, you don't have a core competency of one of the pieces and you need to partner with somebody for another piece. And that's what we did originally with SRC and TargetPro. As time went on, and we became more successful in this space and it become more of a strategic direction for us, it is a natural migration and maturity for you to then to make your own technology. Obviously, we are a $100 million software company, so we're pretty good at making software products.

DM: Can you clarify anymore about what your partners are doing and what their contractual agreements are to sell TargetPro 3.7 and 4.0?
MH: Certainly, we don't have the contractual ability to sell 3.7 as of June 30th and we have not done so. Now, with our partners having old versions of the product, I can't tell you what they have done or haven't done. And this is kind of confusing for us so I rather not even talk about what some may or may not have done.