Status as of November 4, 1999
Planet City Software's booth at the Phoenix ITEC two day show was well visited. We had a good location, right on the corner of a center aisle. The booth was co-sponsored by Computer Associates. That big blue CA banner with white lettering attracted many people to our booth, because we were the only CA authorized resellers at the show. As a result, we made many new contacts with local companies who already use CA products and are looking to buy more, and/or require servicing of the ones they currently own. Joe Genovese, our Sales Division Manager, made good use of his knowledge gained in his past experience selling CA products for Ingram Micro.
We also met some folks from other local hardware, software, and services firms who expressed an interest in "lead sharing". In some cases, they were interested in our CA product line. In other cases, they were impressed by the robust web site creations being showcased by Bill Ulrich, our Web Services Manager.
I enjoyed watching the booth visitors as they listened to Bill while he displayed several of his web site creations and explained the difference between "web pages" (what many firms create as their company's first presence on the web), and the "corporate web sites" that Bill creates. "Corporate web sites" are fully integrated into the company's sales and marketing programs, as opposed to being just online access to static company information. You could almost see the light bulb above their head when it clicked on. Bill and I held lengthy discussions with a few of them who related their current environments, and asked questions about how we could help them utilize the power of the web for their businesses. Many of those who watched Bill's "show" wrote notes on his business card, so I expect them to contact him in the near future.
We also had opportunities to cross-promote our products and services. In one case, a man who was watching Bill's presentation over another visitor's shoulder asked me whether we offered any custom programming services. Of course, the answer is "yes". We then discussed in detail an opportunity at his site where he could use some software architectural design assistance, and then some programming assistance to help his overworked staff implement the design. We ended up discussing some of the CA products for his network needs, and Benchmark's ISPW product for some mainframe configuration management requirements he has.
Rosalie Bock, our newest Customer/Product Support representative and sales administrative assistant, was on hand to distribute flyers and demo CDs for the Millennium Bug Compliance Kit (MBCK). There were some interesting reactions to that. Some waved her off with "oh, we're already done", while others mentioned they hadn't had enough time to even think about the problem yet. Some of the ones who claimed to be done said they didn't know what tool their company used. When we suggested that the problem affected their application software and their data files IN ADDITION to their PC hardware, many of them were surprised. They had never even considered that possibility. For a problem as frequently discussed as the Y2K, there sure isn't much comprehension of the overall impact. The months following December, 1999 are going to be very interesting, as latent Y2K impacts begin to cause ripples in the smooth flow of business. This is true of all environments potentially impacted by the Year 2000 problem; home PC users, small and mid-sized businesses with networked computers, and large corporate entities with "big iron" mainframes.
The MBCK flyer that Rosalie passed out offered a discount to show attendees if they purchased by Sunday, 11/7. We had a couple of other companies that were exhibiting at the show express interest in becoming resellers of the MBCK. Rosalie talked with one very excited candidate for our Non-Profit-Organization program, where we donate $15 per unit to the NPO for each unit sold in response to their involvement.
Of course, none of the above information means anything to the bottom line until we start getting contracts and sales from the followup discussions we'll be holding in the next few days/weeks. The good news, though, is that our first public appearance since the redefinition of Planet City Software's visions and goals was a success. We will consider exhibiting at other similar shows as time and resources permit.
Since May of '99, we have been restructuring and rebuilding the organization to support clients of all sizes in private, commercial, and government sectors. Now, with the success of this show, we have debuted a sales and marketing program that we hope will support our near term cash flow needs, and in the future fund our aggressive research and development efforts. We expect big ticket sales to be slow initially as we gain recognition as a single source supplier of software and services, with revenues increasing as we grow our Sales Division. The biggest challenge in this next phase of our development will be to control expenses without throttling progress, while trying to grow and prosper within the bounds of our limited financial resources. Not an easy task.
In other areas of interest …
Expect some news soon on progress with a mass marketing program for the MBCK. The product has been listed on several domestic web sites, as well as a few International sites where we can highlight the availability of the 5 language versions (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish). See cerca.volftp.mondadori.com
for an example. Click on the camera to see screen shots of the Italian version. We have also given permission for the product demo to be included on a CDROM to be distributed in a special Y2K edition of CHIP, a magazine published in Poland by Vogel Publishing.
According to Interwest Transfer at 801-272-9294, the outstanding number of PINC shares reported as of today is 19,764,368. That is less than the amount that was reported as recently as a week ago. This is because a discrepancy was uncovered during the discovery process for the Form 10-SB filing preparation which has since been corrected. The Transfer Agent's records are now in synch with our corporate records.
A disclaimer statement follows my sign off.
Regards,
Terry E. Dennis, President & CEO
Planet City Corp (OTC BB: PINC)
Certain of the statements contained herein which are not historical facts are forward-looking statements with respect to events, the occurrence of which involve risks and uncertainties. Any such forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. In addition to the general difficulties inherent in forecasting future operating results, particularly in a rapidly changing global economy, other factors can affect performance. Those factors include, but are not limited to, competitive forces, fluctuations in operating results, reliance on industry standards, dependence on new products, risks associated with acquisitions, intellectual property protection and disputes, economic fluctuations, staff turnover, and naturally occurring phenomena. |
