Monday, July 28, 2003

Software

Centra's Navickas steps down as CEO, former Genuity chief comes in

Centra Software Inc., a Lexington-based real-time collaboration software maker, has appointed the former chief executive of Genuity Inc. as its chief executive officer, replacing Centra's longtime founder at the top spot.

The company also reported a narrower loss for the second quarter of 2003 at $2.2 million, nearly half the loss it posted for the second quarter of 2002. Revenue came in at $10.4 million, 23 percent higher than it was for the same period a year ago.

On the news, Centra's stock opened this morning at $2.95, up 15 cents from yesterday's close.

Paul Gudonis will replace Centra's founder, Leon Navickas, who has served as that company's CEO since its inception. Navickas will remain chairman of the board at Centra and will remain with the company as its chief strategy officer.

Through a series of mergers, Gudonis grew BBN, a regional Internet backbone company, into Genuity, a red-hot national Internet service provider during the boom.

Genuity was created in July 2000 as part of the merger of GTE and Bell Atlantic that formed Verizon. The Federal Communications Commission required that GTE spin out its GTE Internetworking division, which was essentially BBN's old operation.

Genuity prospered during the boom but took the crash hard, ultimately filing for bankruptcy in November. Genuity's assets were sold to Level 3 Communications.