Competition, self-defined by medsite.com in their ipo filing:
Competition
We face competition in attracting physicians to our website and in selling
our products and services. We compete with numerous companies and organizations,
including traditional off-line companies such as catalogue and sales-force based
medical distributors, book retailers, continuing medical education programs and
conferences and symposia. We also face significant online competition from
healthcare-related websites, including medical professional websites and book
retailers. In addition, companies with whom we currently have relationships,
including Medscape and Healtheon/WebMD, may compete with us. We believe that
competition for our customers and sources of revenue will continue to increase.
Some of our current and potential competitors may have competitive
advantages compared to us, including:
- greater resources to devote to the development, promotion and sale of
their services,
- greater financial, technical and marketing resources,
- greater brand recognition and larger marketing budgets, and
- larger customer and user bases.
We believe that the principal competitive factors in obtaining and
retaining customers are the attractiveness of our products and services to
physicians, depth and breadth of our products and services, our ability to
convert web traffic into revenue, and brand recognition. Other important factors
include the ease of use, the quality of service and the cost of our products and
services. We believe that the principal competitive factors that will continue
to attract companies into our market include the number of physicians and
medical professionals who use the internet and healthcare expenditures in the
United States. Competition is likely to increase significantly as new companies
enter the market and current competitors expand their services. There can be no
assurance that we will be able to compete successfully against current and
future competitors or that the competitive pressures we face will not seriously
harm our business. |
