Licensing deal boosts Vertel shares

Vertel shares scampered up 2 3/16, or 20 percent, to 12 7/8 Monday after the telecommunications software developer announced that it has sold multiple developer licenses for its e*ORB technology to an undisclosed wireless and optical network equipment manufacturer.

Company officials said the deal will result in some additional revenue in the current quarter and fiscal year.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"In coming to this agreement, our customer also applauded Vertel's technical support efforts during the evaluation phase and our ongoing commitment of support during their development phase," said CEO Cyrus Irani in a prepared release. "This agreement represents a major milestone for Vertel in the adoption of e*ORB in the wireless network infrastructure development space."

Vertel said the deal has the potential to realize "much greater revenues in the form of run-time royalties upon successful future deployment of products containing e*ORB -- at some subsequent date that cannot yet be determined by either party."

In its second quarter, Vertel (Nasdaq: VRTL) posted a profit of $63,000 on sales of $5.3 million.

There is no First Call Corp. consensus estimate in either the third quarter or for the fiscal year.

Vertel shares raced up to a 52-week high of 51 15/16 in March after falling to a low of 1 1/16 in November.