On Friday, Sept. 14 Preo Software, Inc. announced that the corporation was ceasing business operations effective immediately because of its inability to secure additional working capital. As of that date all staff was terminated and all officers and directors of the company resigned. The company had between 20-25 employees, most on the development side.
As a major solutions provider and one that was making some major inroads into MPS with its Printelligence software, the announcement came as a surprise to customers and partners such as Supplies Network who had announced a partnership with PREO in late 2010 and then expanded that partnership earlier this year with FMAudit, and NewField IT to offer cloud-based solutions designed to take MPS to the next level via solutions that track device data as well as end-user data.The earlier announcement by PREO and Supplies Network combined their respective areas of expertise in MPS and integrated the two firms’ software and services.
Also affected by the closure is Staples, who in May 2012 announced that they had entered into a multi-year license agreement with Preo to license their Printelligence technology to Staples Advantage, Staples business-to-business division where the software was part of Staples Technology Solutions (STS) MPS offering. Around the same time Preo was honored by the Managed Print Services Association (MPSA) with a Leadership Award in the Software Provider category and were one of The Week in Imaging’s “Top 40 Solutions & Services Providers that Should be on Every Dealer’s Radar” for 2012.
Earlier this week we caught up with Doug Johnson, senior vice president of Supplies Network to get his reaction to the news and what’s next for Supplies Network now that the Preo component is no longer in the picture. “After 30+ years in business I don’t think anything surprises me anymore, but we were surprised that they ceased operations. Adds Johnson, “Overall, it’s unfortunate for our resellers and their end users that Preo ceased operations. Maybe somebody will pick up that core software and do something with it if they have plans to sell it.”
Johnson reports that Supplies Network is now looking for other providers to step in and provide the capabilities that Preo was supplying—pulling data out of the customer’s environment. “This will continue to be an area that will differentiate resellers in the broader market. We will continue to look for best of breed solutions and bring those to our resellers.”
According to Johnson the reason Supplies Network initially partnered with Preo back in 2010 2010 was that at the time they were the only cloud-based solution on the market. “And for us, to have something that was cloud based and could pull all that data and combine it with our data and our own analytics was key to us,” he says. “Since we did that a couple of years ago other solutions [providers] are moving in that direction.”
The announcement was not a surprise to David Cameron who has worked on and off with Preo over the years and spent about a year on its Board. As a small software company Preo was still burning cash and had two potential funding options that didn’t work out.
“It ended up a capital issue,” explains Cameron. “Big capital would come in and want to have a primary position and the old capital didn’t want to give it up. It’s a shame because we had some people willing to put in capital, but the big institutions wouldn’t support us so it became a non issue and we just ran out of time and cards to play.”
Cameron reports that the company had been working on several promising business opportunities which were gaining momentum prior to last week’s announcement.
“No one had signed the contracts yet but discussions were getting really interesting,” he notes. “We’re definitely looking at how to make the most of those assets and capabilities. People haven’t given up on the technology.”
