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Gold/Mining/Energy : Mercury Scheduling Systems Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kevin Hamlin who wrote (349)	8/23/1999 5:34:00 PM
From: Kevin Hamlin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 437

There are a number of reasons why this news is very significant. 1) There is a big difference between a letter of intent and a contract. For British Airways to move to signing a contract with Mercury, they would need to have been very pleased with Magellan and know that it works well. B.A. is the first major installation of Magellan...and it meets B.A.'s needs and expectations! 2) NO other competitor has this type of product. Ad Opt says they have one in development, but is only spending about $1.5 million to develop it, which is simply not enough. B.A. tried building their own at a cost of $10,000,000 and couldn't do it. I believe Mercury has spent $8 million developing this product. 3) Mercury has the capability to do the installations. This was a big question mark in a lot of people's minds. It's one thing to build the product...another to install it at a company on time and without any glitches. Mercury has done both!! To quote one source, the B.A. installation went "flawlessly". 4) That B.A. signed a contract with MRY for Magellan will turn a lot of industry heads. No doubt they were watching the B.A. development. This will bring many of them to MRY's door, if they're not there already. The B.A. installation will act as a real-time model for other airlines to consider. Being able to show that Magellan works, and futhermore in one of B.A. busiest/most complex routes, puts Mercury in a substantially better position, as opposed to simply talking about the product in a more abstract sense. I believe contracts with other major airlines will follow soon. For example, it is rumoured that American Airlines has already been meeting with Mercury. (Interesting too that American owns 75% of Saber, Mercury's biggest competitor by far.) 5) The timing of this release is also significant. The V.S.E. has a "season" to it if you will, with the end of August and the month of September being one of the key periods where companies will try and time news, with everyone coming back from the summer (a.k.a. summer duldroms) In my opionion, Mercury has been "sitting on" a series of positive news releases, this one being just the first of them. I fully expect September to be an exceptional month for MRY!! Regards, Kevin