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01-16-2007 ATEA - Astea International Inc.

CURRENT PRICE: $7.09

MARKET CAP - ~ $25 million
YEARLY REVENUE - ~ $20 million
PRICE/SALES RATIO - ~ 1.2
TYPE OF PLAY: TURNAROUND/TECHNICAL ANALYSIS/VALUE

* Price/Sales ratio far behind peers in the software industry sector which averages 2.91.

* Currently expanding on a worldwide basis into China, Japan, Fiji, Thailand, Australia, Europe, and the United States.

* Large and diverse customer base (Danka Office Imaging Company, Siemens, BancTec, Circuit City, Citibank, Coca-Cola Amatil, FujiFilm, Fujitsu Services, Japan Business Computer, Johnson Controls (JCI), Kunick Leisure, Mettler-Toledo, Micros Retail Systems, Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, X-Rite, Sony, AlphaNet etc.) validates the usage of Astea software as a means for acquiring new customers.

* Approximately $4.3 million cash on hand ($1.21 per share) and 0 debt on the balance sheet.

Astea is a premier provider of Service Lifecycle Management solutions for companies that market, sell, service and support a wide variety of equipment. Additionally, they provide of a unique class of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technologies for service-centric companies.

The recent acquisition of FieldCentrix Enterprise is a key aspect which deserves particular attention. The company is a wireless service management solution that strategically automates and streamlines manual processes and centralizes disparate applications associated with field service. Their robust solution eliminates the costs and inefficiencies of a paper-based operation, optimizes service resources, and provides standardized practices to support key business improvement initiatives and fast deployment. There is a current global expansion in wireless communications and associated business opportunity underway. This fact is touched on by the CEO in the latest quarterly report: "Our acquisition of FieldCentrix has really helped us enhance our mobile technology offering, and has been a key contributor to our recent successes. We continue to see strong momentum and our focus on sales execution, product innovation and product quality are clear competitive differentiators for Astea."

When discussing the future business outlook, the CEO further states: "The third quarter was very solid for Astea in terms of new customer acquisitions, existing customer expansions, and competitive wins"."We continue to see strong momentum and our focus on sales execution, product innovation and product quality are clear competitive differentiators for Astea."

Technically, ATEA has successfully tested the 50 day moving average support structure and is poised to break over resistance at the 200 day moving average. Aside from this bullish indication, there is also a high gap left from March at the $16.00 price range which naturally invites a move to close once an upward trend is established.

The recent resurgence and success of software companies (such as MSFT, ORCL, CPWR, CAPA, etc.) in this market have left ATEA in an undervalued and an under followed position which creates a unique opportunity. It is our contention that the stock price will begin to establish an upward trend that more closely mirrors the current growth that company is experiencing. It is simply a matter of exposure.

LINKS FOR FURTHER READING:
ATEA homepage
SEC filings for ATEA
General ATEA statistics