MAKER OF NET SYSTEMS FOR TV PLANS IPO.

Byline: Deborah Adamson Daily News Staff Writer

Pacific Softworks Inc., an Internet software company, has filed to go public.

The company develops software systems that allow machines other than computers, such as telephones, faxes and television, to be used for Internet and Web-based communications.

Pacific Softworks plans to offer 800,000 investment units at prices ranging from $5 to $5.50. There are one common share and one warrant in each unit. As soon as the company goes public, the shares and warrants will be traded separately under PASW and PASWW on the Nasdaq SmallCap Market. No date has been set for the initial public offering.

Spencer Edwards is the lead underwriter.

The company is going public at a time when Internet stocks are hot. Jeff Stacey, chief operating officer of IPO Monitor, a listing agency based in Calabasas, calls 1999 the Year of Internet IPOs. ``There's absolutely a lot more Internet IPOs this year,'' he said.

While a hot market for Internet offerings might help Pacific Softworks, it has several hurdles to overcome.

For one, Stacey says it's not a true Internet company like Yahoo! or America Online. Pacific Softworks provides systems, not content or direct access to the Internet.

The company's declining sales and net losses for the past two years also are troubling, he added. Analysts point to increases in sales as a bullish factor for Internet companies, such as Amazon.com, whose stock has flourished in spite of losses.

Both sales and earnings have dropped at Pacific Softworks.

In 1996, the company had sales of $3.6 million and a profit of $393,034 or 12 cents a share. By 1998, sales dropped to $2.7 million and the company lost $473,760 or 14 cents a share. The main culprit for the loss was declining revenues, company officials said.