Copy of letter from someone who visited the PC Expo:
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 22:59:41 EDT
Subject: BNTI - Update from the PC Expo at Jacob Javits Center Interview
6/17/98
I went to the PC Expo at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC with the express purpose of meeting Grant Sutherland and Owen Jones. It was a 3 hour round trip and cost me $55 to get in. I spent 2 hours there, about 1 « hours talking with Grant Sutherland, Owen Jones and Martin Lipper who joined us after a while. Martin Lipper is Director of Research at Triad Securities Corp. of NYC.
I spent the first half hour with Wendy Moore who is Product Manager for Sideware Systems but who has some cross work with Braintech. That was because Grant Sutherland and Owen Jones were in a meeting with two other investors who were not identified or introduced to me. While I was waiting my turn to speak with them Wendy demonstrated the new Sideware program in development called "Dr. Bean" which is billed as the E-Business Customer Service & Support Solution. This program is still in development stage but looks like it could be a great piece of software for businesses who need to do real-time customer service on the web. It won't really be ready for shipment until September. I
got a demonstration of what is already programmed and found it very
interesting. For MrBrT I will give here the breakdown of the "Dr. Bean" program description.
Dr. Bean
The E-business Customer Service & Support Solution.
E-Business Goals
* Personalized response to customers.
* Compelling customer experience.
* Entrench customer loyalty.
* Enable vendors to react quickly to changing information.
* Leverage product information to cross-sell and up-sell.
Customer Requirements
* Real-time personal customer service.
* Service level according to your needs.
* Talk to qualified Customer Service Representatives (CSRs).
* Easy to use.
Customer Service Representatives
* Specialized Customer Service Reps.
* Specific, daily updates for specials, sales, campaigns.
* Access to customer information and buying history.
* Knows the needs of customer in seconds of receiving a request.
* Easy to use interface.
* Chat scripts to speed interaction.
Dr. Bean offers suppliers and customers interactive communication via
real- time messages associated with E-Business Web pages.
Your Customer - wants to talk to a sales rep, clicks on the Dr. Bean
icon, starts asking questions, views new Web pages, buys product, solves problem.
Your response - request is sent to intelligent Dr. Bean queue manager,
appropriate Customer Sales Rep (CSR) is assigned, CSR chats with
customer, CSR pushes Web pages based on customer profile (which means they bring up the appropriate web page that the customer is interested in and views it in real-time at the same time as the customer), CSR notes details of chat for later referral.
Of course I copies that from the brochure and could not provide the
photos that go with it, sorry. By the way "Hot Notions" is being expanded to a 32 bit version.
While I was speaking to Wendy we got on the subject of the new "tool"
described in the press release of June 16, 1998. I also brought this
up with Owen Jones later. The significance of this new "tool" which has been funded by a research grant from the NRC (National Research Council) in Canada and which was not clearly defined in that news release is this. It is a software and hardware device which provides the means to run data streams of information provided by a potential client through it. On the surface that might not mean much to you until you take into consideration that this gives Braintech the ability to run those data streams as an aid to evaluate the
requirements of a given company and to demonstrate Braintech's patented BrainTron and provide a solution to that company in 1 day!!!
Understand the enormity of that statement. It used to take as much as 2 years to do that task without any guarantee of a solution for the company!!! Knowing that makes it easy to see why everyone at Braintech is so excited about this new development. I know I am!!! And now this tool will become an integral element of the larger Odysee project. This is a major development and will serve to help propel this company forward in their business plan much more quickly than any other way that I could imagine!
I think that the company needs a good PR person to properly write up
their releases. I also believe that their press releases are intentionally understated. Braintech is involved in a number of negotiations that could be jeopardized by any mention of the names of the companies involved. They get phone calls every 5 minutes from investors pressuring them to come up with news releases or to give more information than they can freely divulge. Investor impatience can have a devastating effect on the business dealings of a small company negotiating with large well known companies. They have to prove themselves more and undergo more scrutiny then most larger well
established companies would have to go through. I was told, yes,
letting out the news before time would spike the stock, but in so doing it could lose the company it's credibility with the companies they are negotiating with if the news were to be leaked out prematurely. They don't want these companies to think that they are being used for a stock play just to spike the stock. I don't blame them. I was asked not to disclose certain things that I heard for
that reason. Some things such as the names of the companies being
negotiated with aside from Epson, were withheld from me so as to avoid
confidentiality complications and to avoid problems with the SEC a position which I respect. By the way Epson has a 30 day hold on any releases until certain conditions are met, which has another 2 weeks to go. Some papers have been signed and checks have changed hands, but we have to wait for Epson to release the news first in the way they want it released.
I asked about the earnings report and was shown a completed and bound
copy of the report which was prepared by KPMG a very well respected auditing firm that asked to see copies of all contracts, documents, etc. before they would even work on the earnings report. They wouldn't even begin to work on the report if they didn't believe this company had something going for it.
Grant Sutherland let me look through the earnings report and offered to give me a copy to take away but was cautioned by Martin Lipper to wait until they submitted it to their attorneys who would have to submit a properly executed 10K to the SEC. That's right folks the reason we are waiting so long for this report is so that Braintech can become a fully reporting (to the SEC) company. Once the SEC approves the report it will go out over the Edgar system and we will all have access to it. And the release will come out too, with the announcement that the company will at that time be a fully reporting
company!!! That will bring them one step closer to one day being able
to apply to the NASDAQ for full listing. According to Owen Jones they can not make any pronouncements of intentions to move to a big board exchange until they have made all the steps necessary to do so, because it is not legal to do that in Canada. That is why you will not receive a news release on that topic until it is achieved. Of course I can not tell you what was in the report, but it should be released by the end of the month (if all goes according to plan) along with the long awaited shareholders letter.
I asked Grant Sutherland and Owen Jones about the "Insider Trades" that everyone is so concerned about. Grant Sutherland told me that when they took over Braintech the previous management had managed to get the company delisted. He put $2 million of his own money into the company and has had to draw on his profits from time to time. Every time he has gone back in later and repurchased shares. He said that he now has more than 3 million shares which is more than he had when he started. Owen Jones also put money into the company and both of them recently purchased about 400,000 shares each in the market. These guys draw very small salaries to stay in the category required
to continue getting grants from the Canadian NRC. They expect to get
more grants in the future. I was satisfied with their stories. They seem very sincere and determined to make this company grow. They appeared to be very sure of themselves and their business plan.
That's all for now. |
