This is my first post to your thread, however I have been reading it for awhile now.
I would like to introduce my selection for a company that I believe fits into the Prince classification. The current King is AskJeeves and my nomination for Prince classification is Net Shepherd (WEB:CDNX) which is the parent company of the privately held Answers.com.
Why I feel that this company warrants receiving a Prince classification, is that this morning Answers.com announced that they have just signed a contract with a division of GE, and they will be extending their services deeper into that company through a master services agreement.
Message 13797410
From Answers.com's website . . . Answers.com was founded by idealab! in 1996 to provide real-time, expert answers to consumer questions on any topic. This approach required a unique blend of database technology and human expert support. In 1999, Net Shepherd, Inc. acquired and re-launched Answers.com to focus on the business-to-business market.
Today, Answers.com develops, markets and supports Web-enabled customer interaction. Our goal is to help businesses manage their customer service inquiry volume efficiently while maximizing overall customer satisfaction and reducing costs. Through our advanced question and answer technology, Answers.com provides the best tools for online customer service support. Simply put, it allows your customers to quickly find real answers to their questions '24 hours a day, seven days a week' right from the convenience of your company's Web site.
Aside from Answers.com, Net Shepherd owns three other subsidiary companies that they are spinning off to IPO over the next while. ktopia (www.ktopia.com), and ClickChoice.com (www.clickchoice.com).
The Chairman of the Board of Net Shepherd (and owner of 51% of the company) is Jan Baan. Mr. Baan started and built Baan Software into a multi-billion dollar company and left the company two years ago to start a venture capital / operating company (known as Vanenburg Group - vanenburg.com). Mr. Baan, and the board of directors of Net Shepherd have stated that they are in the process of researching ways in which shareholders of Net Shepherd will will able to participate in Pre-IPO shares of each of the companies that they plan to spin off onto NASDAQ. The first of which will be Answers.com. answers.com
Net Shepherd's technology enables their distributed Task Force network of 2,000 on-line responders to provide low cost and efficient responses to business queries.
GE put Answers.com through a three month demonstration trial to prove that they could deliver what they promised. From my perspective, GE would not jeopardize their customer service if they did not feel that this company had the ability to deliver the goods. From the announcement today, it is obvious that the demonstration went well.
Here is a link to just how big GE is.
Message 13797043
As mentioned earlier, the current KING or Market leader is AskJeeves. The question should be asked as to why GE chose Answers.com and not the current King in this field.
Net Shepherd is currently trading at a price of $3.05(CDN) which is approximately $2.01(US).
netshepherd.com
I have been following this company for over a year now, and I have been waiting for the time when I can finally post on this thread.
Thank you for reading this.
Crazy Canuck |
