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Gold/Mining/Energy : BPI, Big Picture Technologies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: grantsi who wrote (75)	12/15/1999 8:34:00 AM
From: sPD	Respond to of 249

Coverage of BPI in December 13 Ottawa Citizen. Big Picture Technologies (BPI/VSE) of Calgary has released a software product that enables small and medium-sized businesses to easily set up an interactive Web site with e-commerce capability. Selling for slightly under $100 U.S., eMERCHANT pro, is an all-in-one solution that includes domain name registration, site hosting, and telemarketing facilities. The hosting service is provided to clients free for the first three months, after which it could become a source of monthly revenues as clients opt to continue. This should give the company a stream of recurring revenues complementary to software product revenues. Messrs. Bonnet and Rebeiro (Groome) forecast revenues of $1.5 million to $2 million in 1999, which will be 200- to 300-per-cent higher than the $500,000 achieved in 1998. For 2000 they are forecasting revenues of $6 million to $8 million. Big Picture closed Friday at $1.90. On Dec. 2, the two analysts issued a 12-month target of $2.85 for Big Picture shares. It is estimated that 60 per cent of small- to medium-sized North American businesses are still not using the Internet to market their goods and services. As these firms make the transition to the Web, exponential growth is expected in the target market. And compared with the few competing products available in this market, Big Picture's offering provides a more complete solution. The company is due to release another software product, Blur, in the first quarter of next year. Blur permits the addition of a customer support and service function to Web sites. According to the Software Information Industry Association, additional customer services on Web sites are a 'killer app' in the e-commerce sphere.