TWST: Could you give us a historical evolution of the company and then a description of what you’re doing right now?
Mr. Lobsinger: Zi Corporation (Nasdaq:ZICA) is a market-driven technology company focused on developing and delivering intelligent interface solutions for the wireless and consumer Internet space. We are a seven-year-old company and we trade on the National NASDAQ and the Toronto Stock Exchange. The last two years has seen Zi Corporation embark on a path of global expansion, where we have opened up offices in Stockholm, Sweden; Tokyo, Japan; Shenzhen, China and expanding our offices in Beijing, San Francisco and Calgary, Canada. We entered the year with 96 employees and we currently have over 230 employees worldwide.
TWST: What would be your biggest market as time goes by?
Mr. Lobsinger: We have focused on producing what we consider to be the most difficult — ideographic language — and the largest market, and that was the Asia Pacific region. Currently, Ericsson has our technology embedded on all of their product in Asia that is enabled with Chinese text-entry. Of late, Alcatel has licensed our technology in 15 languages and is launching their One Touch 300, 500 and 700 series, which will sell globally in 15 different languages. Legend has incorporated our technology in their set-top boxes to be sold in Asia. GTRAN has licensed our technology in 24 languages and they will be selling in South America as well as the Asia Pacific region. Globally, we are very conscious of becoming a world player, hence our language offerings.
TWST: How do you stand in relation to the competition? Are there substantial barriers to entry for anyone who would like to jump in and compete with you?
Mr. Lobsinger: We believe that there are barriers to entry. This is a highly technical field. The language databases that we have developed are not just a compilation of words. We have an intuitive, predictive, frequency table built into our databases. There are barriers to entry — both in technology developments as well as intellectual property and patents. Competitively, in the last six months, I believe Zi Corporation won eight out of the last 10 licenses that were issued in the space in a global market.
TWST: Could you give two or three of the most cogent and blunt reasons why a long-term investor should invest in your company?
Mr. Lobsinger: To reiterate our vision, we’re market-driven and we are very focused on delivering intelligent interface solutions to the wireless consumer Internet spaces. That vision to me says exactly what we’re focused on doing and what we’re actually doing in reality. That is the space that is growing at an astronomical rate throughout the world, the wireless and Internet spaces and connecting people to those products. We are in the arena that has the largest expansion rate in the world and we think that we are going to be a player that has to be reckoned with, because of the depth of our technology and because of the depth of our languages. |
