Here is a copy of a post from RB:
ragingbull.com
Regards,
Bill
Copy of Post Below:
Baguba... and All,
Here's the Dow Jones article. Any comments?
Jim
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February 4, 2000
Dow Jones Newswires
Paradigm Racing To Release Its Tracking Technology
By ANN MARIE MCQUEEN
TORONTO -- It's often a race to see who will be the first to get a high technology product to
the market, but Paradigm Advanced Technologies Inc. (PRAV) president and chief executive
David Kerzner believes his company's time has come to score a win.
Paradigm shares quadrupled Wednesday after the company announced it landed a 10-year
U.S. patent covering the process of transmitting signals from a satellite global position system,
or GPS, over any cellular telephone network to a base unit. Kerzner believes investors were
reacting to potential revenues associated with GPS technology when the stock surged to 2.02
in Nasdaq trading Wednesday, to close at 2.62 on 16.4 million shares.
Friday the stock fell back, closing down 0.16 to 1.59 on about 7.3 million shares.
"This certainly has captured people's attention," Kerzner said.
Paradigm was simply in "the right place at the right time" when it decided to go after the patent,
Kerzner said. Having it means 170 companies who provide some form of GPS tracking-type
service, and potentially many more who start doing so, will eventually be required to pay
Paradigm for that right, Kerzner said. Paradigm also holds the GPS-related patent in Australia
and has patents pending for Canada and Japan.
As potentially lucrative as the U.S patent could be, with Paradigm raking in a percentage of
revenues from hundreds of potential licencees, the company's main mission is to unveil its own
GPS technology aimed at tracking people through their cellular phones and paging systems.
Kerzner plans to introduce that technology within the next four weeks.
It has a variety of potential growth areas, including tracking victims who make 911 calls on
their cellular phones, parents who want to keep track of their children, caregivers monitoring
Alzheimer patients and for use in traffic and navigation systems, Kerzner said. "It's huge," he
said.
The Strategis Group of Washington, D.C. projects that revenues from location-based wireless
consumer services are expected to rise to $3.9 billion in 2004 from less than $30 million in
1999.
Kerzner envisioned a personal tracking technology before forming Paradigm and taking it
public in 1996, when he owned a security company. Some of his high-profile, high-end clients
wanted to know if there was a way they could track their children's wherabouts for security
purposes.
"I though boy, whoever comes out with that is going to do well," he said.
Company's Roots In Video Technology
Toronto's Paradigm began with Kerzner's idea about a way to digitally record video for a
PC-based surveillance application. He was able to raise cash to start Paradigm and take it
public on the strength of that idea, but was ultimately beaten to the punch in getting it to market.
One of Paradigm's other products involves redefining that product as video compression
techniques have evolved, technology Kerzner hopes the company will be able to unveil by July.
Last month Paradigm announced it intends to aquire the Internet broadcast, iCAM and iCARE
businesses of the Houston's Worldlink USA, a division of Pangea Petroleum Corporation
(PAPO). The company is not announcing financial terms of that deal until it closes March 30.
Paradigm is now working on similar acquisition which it hopes to announce within the next four
weeks.
With plans to grow through development and acquisition starting to take shape and gain
attention, Kerzner believes Paradigm is gaining momentum. "If we do what we say we're going
to do, it could be a Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) sort of thing," he said, referring to the U.S.
digital wireless communication systems and Internet products company Paradigm sees as one
of its many competitors.
Paradigm, which lost $4.2 million between its inception in 1996 and the start of 1999, hopes to
start generating revenues from its GPS technology and patent within six months, and turning a
profit within a year. A listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange is "possible", as is another public
offering, Kerzner said. Since the recent "interest and excitement", Paradigm has already been
approached with offers to underwrite a secondary offering," he said.
The biggest challenge for Paradigm now is to get its GPS technology out on the market before
anyone else does, he said.
"This time I think we've got it," Kerzner said. "It's a real trick, let me tell you."
Paradigm has four full-time employees and contracts out a portion of its work.
-Ann Marie McQueen, Dow Jones Newswires; 416-306-2031 annmarie.mcqueen@dowjones.com
Copyright ¸ 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
