ISPD Longs,
I spoke for about 15 minutes with Bill Burke, CFO of ISPD, this AM.
Mr. Burke addressed all my questions to the extent that he was allowed to. His responses follow (I have paraphrased his responses, but the content is accurate).
1. When will earnings be announced?
B2: Earnings will be announced on Feb 9th or 10th, as they will be paired with BRKT earnings. BRKT has a 57% ownership and the results of ISPD affects their earnings also, thus they are, and will be in the future, linked.
2. What is the policy of ISPD regarding pre-announcement?
B2: ISPD wants to maintain a policy of pre-announcing in the event that targets for the quarter are not met. We are past the window that we would have used to preannounce (note, I took this to clearly mean that there are no concerns with the quarters earnings).
3. Is BRKT still providing services to ISPD for certain business functions, or is ISPD a complete stand alone company at this time?
B2: As of December 1999, ISPD is addressing all business operation issues without support from BRKT.
4. There has been very little news related to market growth, and the news that has been released did not contain specific details, do you expect this trend to continue, and when could ISPD shareholders expect an update on sales progress.
B2: Things are going well, certain information regarding market efforts is not released to prevent issues related to interference from our competitors. (note: B2 indicated that the team at ISPD (several people from Boston Technologies?) has faced competition and has the skills to meet these challenges.) B2 said that we are where CMTN was at this point in their development.
Next news would probably be around earnings.
5. The Warburg analyst has indicated that he is confident that the next quarter or two of earnings might be secure, but he has long term concerns with overall growth. What are your thoughts about additional growth beyond the targets that have been identified for ISPD (Small U.S. deals and European opportunity>This was implied and not stated by me).
B2: We are confident that the 17.5 million target for this year will be met. (Note: I got the impression that he was very confident, not just that he thought this was possible, this is just my impression so please do not give much weight to this statement).
6. Is ISPD going to change the methods for releasing information to the street?
B2: As our recent PR indicated we have a new VP of marketing and a new VP of world wide sales. We expect that they will improve the method of releasing information as they assume and develop their responsibilities.
7. I understand that the CEO has been sick, is this true?
B2: Just the flu that has been moving around the country. The CEO is wired into operations here and is expected to return this week.
Hope this helps. Please post any questions.
Thurston |
