Speech Heads, there has been no shortage of rumors flying around about Vicorp as of late.
In April, the London Gazette briefly reported that Vicorp U.K. Limited was being voluntarily “wound down,” or liquidated. The announcement followed a number of layoffs, wherein many staff members were immediately terminated at the end of March. The company also seems to have moved offices in Berkshire, and, post-redundancies, is operating with what some have described as a “skeleton team” that has “risen from the ashes.”
“We are very much alive and well,” counters Brendan Treacy, chief executive office of Vicorp Group in an email to Speech Tech, though. “As a publicly listed company here in the U.K., we had the ignominy of having to inform the markets every time we hit funding or contract issues, and in the current climate being a small listed company is not a great place to be.”
Mr. Treacy claims the company has been transformed into more competitive business. Citing the $25 million of “sunk investment” in Vicorp’s xMP product, he says that the company can now afford pursue licensing and distribution more aggressively. He maintains that it has closed a number of deals in the last three months and intends to do “a lot more wholesale licensing.” He maintains, however, that Vicorp is not abandoning application development, and will continue “at rates that competitors cannot match.”
“After 28 years of trading, we are not about to give up and we have put ourselves into a strong position to maintain growth and service our high profile client base-all of whom continue to support us,” Mr. Treacy writes.
