Net Shepherd Announces Result For First Nine Months Of 1999
Calgary, Alberta --
Review of operations shows momentum building and considerable progress against plans unveiled earlier this year.
Net Shepherd Inc. (CDNX: WEB) today announced their trading result for the first nine months of 1999.
"Our revenue for the first nine months is $2.93 million, compared with $2.85 million during the same period of 1998", said Don Sandford, President & CEO of Net Shepherd, in a statement released today. "The commissioning phase of Version 2.0 of our core technology - our Internet Community Management System (ICMS) - took longer than planned, as is sometimes the case with such a pioneering venture. This initiative resulted in higher costs and delayed revenue. As a result, the loss for Q3 was $1.17 million. We now expect revenue for 1999 to be at about last year's figure, with a substantial increase in the first quarter of next year, leading to a figure in the range of $10-20 million for 2000. We will be able to radically speed up our technology development processes through the proposed enhanced business combination with ClickChoice and the Vanenburg Group, which was announced earlier today."
The remainder of Sandford's statement reads as follows:
This has been an exciting period for Net Shepherd. There is now a real momentum building behind the company, which can be seen in our new customers, the people who are joining us and the alliances that we're creating. We have only reached this take-off point fairly recently and so this progress is not reflected in our Q3 figures, but we have reached an inflection point as we enter 2000."
ICMS 2.0 is now commercially available, enabling us to move forward with major potential customers who have made various degrees of commitment to using this new technology. This also means that our applications companies, such as Answers.com now have an operating platform on which to build their businesses.
Talks with customers inevitably take time to come to fruition, but we are already seeing the first fruits of this work in the announcement of our revenue-earning demonstration contract with Kennisnet. This contract is helping to confirm our business model and provides clear evidence of the good work being done by Net Shepherd Europe.
We are also now developing ICMS 3.0, which will make use of Neural Networks and Distributing Processing Networks in processes that we are patenting. These and other innovations will both broaden our commercial offerings and greatly increase the effectiveness of our on-line community.
At the time of our Q2 announcement, we said that we would continue to aggressively pursue the best route to NASDAQ, possibly in a relationship with another company. We believe that the announcement of our proposed enhanced business transaction with ClickChoice and the Vanenburg Group not only provides a route to NASDAQ, but also gives the access to capital and development resources that the business needs.
We have also talked in the past about our plans for setting up US-based companies, selling applications of our technology in the biggest Internet market in the world. They will have the potential for revenues well in excess of Net Shepherd's previously published figures. The announcement of the setting up of our Business Intelligence company and the appointment as CEO of David Herman, formerly Dun & Bradstreet's Partner for Global Business Development is a big step forward. David brings a wealth of high quality experience in the business intelligence market, the on-line part of which is forecast by Forrester to be worth $11 billion within five years. A similar quality of experience can be seen in our announcement of Mike Morrison and others joining the Management Team at Answers.com.
These people have joined us because they realize the enormous commercial potential of Net Shepherd's platform: its technology and its on-line community. Others are also seeing this potential, an example of which is our invitation to attend the BaanWorld Exposition in Austria.
Our Q2 Announcement also talked about the transitioning of our traditional systems integration operation into a high growth Internet business consultancy and delivery practice. This will be launched as an independent business early in 2000.
This has been an exciting period for us and we want to have the opportunity to discuss developments more fully with shareholders and analysts. The next Net Shepherd Investor Forum will be held on the afternoon of Wednesday the 1st of December at 2.30 p.m., Calgary time. There will be three ways in which people will be able to participate in this:
1. By phoning 1-800-273-9672. Callers will hear an introduction from myself and will then be able to participate in a Question and Answer discussion session.
2. If people are concerned that they might not get a chance to ask a question, then they can e-mail it to us before or during the Forum at: investor@netshepherd.com.
3. If people want to just listen to the Forum, then they can use an audio feed over the Internet via www.netshepherd.com, which will be available on the Thursday afternoon.
You will see that we have made substantial progress during Q3. There is now a great deal of momentum behind Net Shepherd and we are delivering on the plans that we outlined in both our Q2 Announcement and in our Roadmap. We have assembled - and continue to attract - a very high quality team, who are working hard and delivering good results. We are extremely well placed for very considerable growth. We believe, for example, that we can achieve $2 million in revenue during Q1 2000 as part of a substantial upward trend.
I hope to have the pleasure of talking to many of our investors and analysts during our Investor Forum on the 1st of December.
Background Notes:
Net Shepherd's technology helps companies that want to transform the way they do business and create new opportunities using the Internet. It is a leading provider of Internet-based community solutions to provide the gathering of information and the management of work at the speed of the Internet.
Net Shepherd develops, partners with and invests in companies that use this technology in a variety of different applications.
Net Shepherd Inc. is traded on The Canadian Venture Exchange under the symbol WEB.
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