Mike and others,
I know that what is below is probably old hat to the long time holders of GMGC. Many of the longer term investors know what is going on with GMGC (or at least think they know:)) But, maybe this will help. It is in reference to Markman's interview.
One thing that was conspicuously missing was the QWST deal. A couple of possibilities are that QWST is too involved with major deals such as the acquisition of FRO, USWest, or the possible deal with BS. Another possibility is that QWST may want to keep everything as low key as possible. IMO, QWST is trying to build as large as market as possible and that GMGC has been put on the backburner.
Don't think that revenue will be great for Q3. Only XCIT and myTalk will provide any revenue for the full qtr (Portico is still minimal revenue at best). Q4 will provide revenue (for the full qtr) from XCIT, myTalk, Intuit, and possibly WK. Even WK will need to ramp up their services over time and Q4 will provide only a small amount of potential revenue from WK. Look at BS contributing revenue from the Atlanta and northern GA area only in Q4 (BS will also need to push this service).
That being said, I think the interview was very positive. If there are ideas on the interview please add to this post.
Take care,
Kurt
PS-look at the comments regarding possible exposure due to the XCIT deal, comments about Wildfire and Webley, and the comment from "DR" Bill Meisel from TMA Associates. Meisel has stated in an email to me that GMGC's MagicTalk was the best of its genre. Great compliment from a recognized expert in the field.
to roll Portico out as a virtual assistant in the Atlanta area,..
Rollout with BS will be slow and easy. They won't get the 4-6% of the market share (BS' market share) overnight.
As more consumers become comfortable and familiar with this
technology, we believe more of them will want to take advantage of
additional value offered through fee-based voice-enabled services in
the future. We are building up considerable momentum, and I look
forward to a bright future.
Suck the customers in with this strategy. Broad market appeal. IMO, it will work once customers start to rely on this type of service.
The relationship includes a $6 million investment in
General Magic by Excite@Home; an agreement to share net revenues
from advertising generated on a new Excite service called Excite
Voicemail; and a technology agreement for General Magic to supply
our magicTalk voice platform in the Excite Voicemail service.
The platform is what Markman has been saying all along (de facto standard).
But clearly, the ability to make it very easy to use and very
comfortable and get it in front of people is going to be very
important. ...The other thing you need is a way of getting people
introduced to it. So a mass-adoption approach.....The third element is what we've done inside of Portico, which is to create a one-stop shopping place,..And last but not least is the ability to have access to
transactions. Our agent technology, which we've code-named
Kenya, is focused on enabling access to Internet sites when you're
not connected, and when something important comes up, contacting
you to allow you to complete a transaction all over the phone using
just your voice.
It appears as though they now have a strong sense of direction with their marketing plan.
We've sort of passed, I think, a critical point already when BellSouth announced it was going to roll Portico out.
This is why GMGC is going all out with their engineers to ensure this service works as perfect as possible. Once they prove that the BS' and MagicTalk system is working, then others will jump on board as quickly as possible. Notice that BS is going to rollout Portico.
We've publicly stated that we are expanding to accommodate
500,000 users by the end of the year, and it could be higher than
that. But the mix of usage may be such that the capacity is higher,
and we can actually go well beyond that.
It sounds as though they are planning to be full in terms of capacity. To go well beyond that means that they can probably accomodate more than that, but not at the same time or instance.
So, we are already in discussions with a number of companies that have facilities outside this area, closer, for example, to our cellular
partners' main switching centers, which would lower our overall
cost of providing service for them. We're absolutely looking at
those opportunities right now.
Read mini-NOC and BLS. Cost of long distance to Sunnyvale (NOC) from the southeast is prohibitive. Have a NOC near the carrier. No long distance charges. Costs for phone call would be low pennies vs 10-15 cents or so for long distance calls. That is why BS has announced their service for only $29.95. No long distance charges save mucho money.
Initially, we relied a lot on the public market, and more recently, private investors. But right now, we're focusing our attention more on strategic partnerships. Money is nice, but we'd really like to have someone who can help us leverage as well, someone who has presence in different markets, a strong customer support and marketing organization, who can supplement what we can do and get us there much, much faster and provide the capital to accomplish some of these things. That's what we're
focused on right now in terms of looking for additional funding.
Sounds like no more Series C or D placements. They want the big boys. Also, this could be why the 10 mil shares were registered.???
Besides, given where we are now, which is revenue run rates of $150,000 a quarter, while we're expecting that to go up significantly in the second half of this year, the growth rates would be phenomenal. So quoting a growth rate probably is the wrong thing to do at this point.
Still a question? Maybe $5-10 million??
I don't see anyone right now who can help us. I think the biggest
help we're going to get is through strategic partnering with major
carriers and Internet companies. That will help us a whole lot
more than the acquisition route — although we may do some
additional technology acquisitions in the near future,...
Anybody have any ideas on a possible acquisition in the near future? Need help from you techno weenies.
That's okay, I certainly will look at offers, and it's my fiduciary responsibility to do so. If you are asking me, is it our plan to do that? No, that's not our plan.
That sounds as though Markman isn't worried about the survival of the company.
And certainly as we roll out other network operation centers, the cost is going to reflect that.
Notice that is plural.
We are very much undervalued. I think
terribly undervalued for what we provide. The strength of our
technology and the position that we have in the market place make
us a recognized leader in voice enabling. This is going to be the next
hot market. So we're very well positioned current investors would have liked to have seen. ....The new competitors have none. We know early stage companies in the Valley that are trying to do edges of what we do, not quite what we do. They're going to take two years to figure it all out.
If they can keep this edge, they just may have a lock on the market for a few years to come. Aint to shabby of a position to be in.
We've built in the carrier channels what is going
to be a rock solid foundation. It will allow us to also pursue the
Internet space, and go for all the longer range benefits that you get
from the Internet space,...
This carrier statement sounds like a done deal and it also appears as though they have more than one carrier in mind.
My ultimate answer is, well, the ultimate dilution is a
stock that's zero. So, folks, I think you're worrying about the wrong
problem. Trust me, we're working on getting the best deals that we
can in terms of funding this. But nonetheless, that remains a concern
and rightly so. But I'm very, very optimistic about the company,...
For all those that hate the Series C and D holders (me included), GMGC would not have survived without their cash. Doesn't seem like Markman is in the least bit worried.
We're in the middle of what's clearly going to be a very hot market. We are in a unique position of having unique technologies that are very, very hard to duplicate. Certainly, from an operational perspective, very, very hard to duplicate.
I think this is the key. Great potential in a huge market and it is not a market that is easily accessible (big barriers to enter this market) |
