Supposedly it went well(see Raging bull). By the way, here's a Bloomberg article that I believe was just released:
Austin, Texas, July 15 (Bloomberg) -- Marc Eller waited a long time to
see the lion's face glistening in the central Texas sun. In fact, Eller, the chairman of SI Diamond Technology Inc., is glad there's anything to see at all on the 80-square-foot electronic billboard he built on the outskirts of Austin, Texas.
A year ago, his Austin company was awash in losses and bad debt and had little to show for years of development promises about its flat-panel screen technology. Today, Eller is showing off the flat-panel billboard for about 150 potential customers and investors in the hills southwest of SI Diamond headquarters. ''This is going to revolutionize the outdoor sign business,'' said Wilson Jaeggli, a Dallas hedge-fund manager who's been buying SI Diamond shares. ''You don't need a guy painting out there. You can change (the images) whenever you want.''
Eller walks around the display to show how the picture can be seen
clearly from almost every angle. To demonstrate the billboard's versatility, the images change every 30 seconds -- a motorcyclist, an American flag, a field of sunflowers and back to the lion.
New Technology
The clarity of the image is key to Eller's marketing strategy. Other
giant-screen technology uses light-emitting devices, or ''tips,'' that are harder to see in sunlight and aren't visible from all angles.
SI Diamond's technology uses a carbon film that emits electrons,
causing phosphors to glow and produce colors. Sixteen picture elements, about the size of a thumbnail, are placed on a four-inch square tile. Hundreds of tiles are used to make a billboard. By next year, Eller expects to have 64 elements on each tile, creating a picture that's four times clearer. SI Diamond is scheduled to have its first billboard installed by the end of September in Austin. As many as five will be in use by year's end, Eller said. The company's Electronic Billboard Technology unit will own the signs, which will be
marketed by major outdoor advertising companies.
The company already has had talks with Clear Channel Communications Inc.'s Eller Media unit, the largest U.S. billboard company, which had a representative at today's demonstration. ''My sense is these guys may be on to something,'' said Bill Hooper, Eller Media's executive vice president. ''If so, we'd like to be able to use their product.''
If successful, SI Diamond's design would use less power, require less
maintenance and last longer than other electronic signs, Hooper said.
Marc Eller, who isn't related to Eller Media, said he's also in talks with other billboard companies that he declined to name.
Versatility
Because the billboards are essentially giant computer screens, they
can be changed every few seconds. Restaurants, for example, could
advertise breakfast specials in the morning, a lunch menu at noon and special deserts for dinner, simply by entering commands on an Internet site that controls the sign. ''I just can't see that in the 21st century that billboards are still going to be sticking paste,'' Eller
said. SI Diamond will get a portion of the advertising revenue generated by each sign. ''Each sign is going to be a continuing revenue stream for us,'' Eller said. That, and revenue from other licensing agreements for its flat-panel technology, is likely to generate sales of $12 million for the company this year and $30 million next year, up from $800,000 in 1998, he said. What's more, the
company will be profitable this year for the first time ever.
Investor Interest
Such predictions have been fueling investor interest. SI Diamond's
shares have almost tripled in the past month as word spread through Internet chat rooms that the company's technology is gaining favor. The stock closed at 2 27/32 yesterday, its highest since November 1996. Shares fell 13/32 to 2 7/16 today in trading of 1.9 million, almost triple the three-month daily average. SI Diamond hasn't generated this kind of investor interest in years. The company's shares climbed as high as 10 in September 1995, then collapsed
because of private placements and convertible warrants that diluted the shares. Eller, an investor in one of those placements, took over in 1996 after angry shareholders ousted the previous management. By that time, though, the company was in a ''death spiral,'' Eller said, as wave after wave of warrants were converted to stock, further eroding the company's market value. ''That just absolutely killed the company,'' Eller said. He brought in Zvi Yaniv, a veteran of the flat-panel industry, as SI Diamond's president. Yaniv dug through the company's technology and patents, trying to find one product to make the focus.
Meanwhile, Eller sold off a manufacturing division, pared the
company's workforce to 20 from 150 and borrowed money from friends to keep the company afloat. ''You have a company that's been through the wringer, that had nothing but negative earnings, that had to do a lot of private placements to get by,'' said Jaeggli, who won't disclose the size of his holdings.
Uphill Battle
To be sure, SI Diamond still has an uphill battle. Its technology
competes with better-funded companies such as Motorola Inc. and Raytheon Co.. What's more, the company first began talking about producing billboards shortly after Eller took over in 1996, but development took years instead of the months originally predicted.
Part of the problem has been money. The company's rocky financial
footing has made it difficult to fund research and development, Eller said. To help get the billboard business off the ground, he set up another SI Diamond division, FEPET Inc., which licenses the flat- panel technology for other uses. The designs already are used at drive-in windows of most company-owned Burger King restaurants.
In March, FEPET received a $5 million licensing fee from a Japanese
manufacturer it declines to identify. Canon Inc., however, has since
said it intends to use the same technology to develop brighter, cheaper television screens measuring 40 inches or more diagonally. ''Canon's use of this technology is forcing all the other manufacturers to use it,'' Jaeggli said. Canon, Japan's largest maker of automated office equipment, has teamed with Toshiba Corp. to develop monitors for wall- mounted widescreen television sets. The displays use less power than plasma display panels from rivals such as
Hitachi Ltd. and Fujitsu Ltd., Canon and Toshiba said at a Tokyo
press conference last month.
The current agreement, which involved one lump-sum payment, was
important in validating SI Diamond's technology, Eller said. Now, Eller believes he can require an up-front fee as well as royalty payments in future licensing arrangements. ''For the first time, I'm negotiating from a position of strength,'' Eller said.
NYSE/AMEX delayed 20 min. NASDAQ delayed 15 min.
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Interesting, eh? And pretty much an even-handed statement of where SIDT's been, and where it might be going. Clearly SIDT's a speculation right now, but for the first time in some time they're generating good press, and appear to have a product to sell. Indeed, the name Canon does inspire some confidence.
Now let's see how today goes..
John~ |
