NEC sales . . . DBII new product . . . .
Today's announcement by NEC appears to confirm the post on this thread that IDX has a major TP-600 deal in California for, among other things, screening school teachers. That deal was pegged at 100 machines, with a few already installed. This new PR says at least 90 machines are being sold. The information on Orange County (25 machines) confirms a rumor that IDX had a sale to Orange County ready to go. The 22 machines to King County, Washington (i.e., Seattle) and the 5 to Alaska are news to me.
Value of these deals to IDX? About the size of the Cook County deal ($9 million to NEC, about $6 million of that to IDX). Here, it will probably be more like $5.4 million to IDX, most or all of it in this quarter. I would expect a company PR any time now, since there is no reason to hold back as long as NEC has made its announcement.
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DBII announcement: With the price reduction to $22,000 per machine, DBII is trying to expand the market for tenprinters and put some pricing pressure on IDX. These machines are not the same product as the DBII TenPrinter, except in a less rugged box. DBII has neither the gross margin nor economies of scale to price its present product this low. You will be getting less product for less money. It appears that they could not be FBI-certified, which leads me to ask how useful they are going to be to employers for background checks. And then what is the market? Who wants a $22,000 tenprint machine that doesn't give you a police clearance, and only gives a pretty picture? On the other hand, if there is a market for this product (even if I don't know what it is), IDX will face pricing pressure in its main market. |
